Apple Clarifies iPhone 4's Poor Reception

There's always going to be an official statement. And, thankfully, in the case of Apple, they're quick about it. While plenty of people out there have been reporting that the iPhone 4 loses reception, or just the bars that reflect that reception, throughout the day (and even yesterday), Apple's ready to come forward and clarify the situation. The result? Hold your iPhone in a different way.

The truth is, your favorite wireless phone uses an antenna. And, no matter how hard we try, there's always a way to make that antenna lose its signal connection, just by doing something or another. In the case of the iPhone 4, it seems that, if your hand is even the slightest bit wet, and you hold it in such a way that covers the black strip near the bottom-left of the device, your reception will go down. And, as GearLog points out, this affects data transmissions more than it affects voice calls. If you're in an area that is well known to have good service, but you're holding the device in such a way that it reflects low bars, you should still be able to make a voice call. In areas that have poor service already, well, you should know better than to try and make a call there. It makes all those reports of people being able to still make calls, even when their bars reflected quite a different scenario, make sense, if anything else.

Here's the comment from Apple:

"Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your Phone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases."

And the truth is, they're right. While the antennae of the iPhone 4 does indeed frame the entirety of the device, it wasn't meant to necessarily give the new iPhone boosted signal. It's designed in such a way so that the phone can be as slim as it is, and still cram all that technology into it. The one thing that we can tell from all of this, is the simple fact that every person is probably going to have a different experience. Either you hold your phone differently, or you don't make voice calls, or you've already got one of Apple's bumper cases on it, the experience is going to be different.

[via GearLog]