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iPhone 4: "We're working on it..."

By David Kim - July 2, 2010

in Tech

The iPhone 4 has received it's fair share of criticism (and lawsuits?) due to a design flaw where holding the phone a certain way causes dropped calls and lowered reception strength. Yesterday Steve Jobs supposedly said, "We're working on it..." and today, the "Death Grip" problem is being acknowledged on Apple's site as a "software calculation error."

Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don't know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

Apple goes on to say they used the same formula for past iPhones, but it's only noticeable now because of the new antenna.

Already have an iPhone 4 and want to reduce your Death Grip? You're not alone. People around the web have been hard at work: some have painted clear nail polish around the phone, others have wrapped tape on the corners, a few have used Sugru, while the most audacious have taken a knife to the ports and modified their SIM cards. I guess desperate times call for desperate measures, but you could just buy a case.

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Steve

14 years ago

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With the release of the new iPhone 4 I'm really experiencing a case of schadenfreude. I have the iPhone 3GS and have been very happy with it. Why would I want to trade it in for a newer version that doesn't work as well? Oh right, to be at the leading edge of technology and be uber cool at the same time. I suppose smart phones that actually work are so outdated.
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iLuvIt

14 years ago

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I got it and luv it. Its fast, very usable, and a necessity now in daily business. As a result i have a case for every phone I have. I prefer apple's polish to open source feature bloat of android. The fewer things apple does, they do better and with polish. Case and point the evo screen and camera: both larger than iPhone and in the case of camera resolution, it takes higher rez pic, yet the screen and pics look better on iPhone.

I tried the antenae test and had it happen, but it was a deliberate test, and i just dont hold the camera thst way in practice. I think people are obsessing about these issues instead of just using the phone.
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Huhster

14 years ago

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I love how people modify an essentially faulty phone which will in fact invalidate their warranty, when all they should do is return it !
Fashion obsession is a very scary thing.
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Sidney

14 years ago

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The fact of the matter is that calls are dropped, or reception deteriorated, when gripping the iphone 4 at the bottom half regardless of how many bars show (this from my experience).
This is obviously a hardware flaw and not a software flaw.
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winfred

14 years ago

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for the second time problem with a bar... the first time it was lost in a bar, now it looses bars!
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Jeremy

14 years ago

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iphones? Never heard of them...Sounds like something from iCarly!
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Ben

14 years ago

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But they're so ugly... lol
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Josh

14 years ago

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>I guess desperate times call for desperate measures, but you could just buy a Droid.

Fixed. ;)
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Jonathan Brill

14 years ago

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A case???? Why buy an iphone? Isn't the point of an enclosure to protect the contents?
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