Consumer Reports: iPhone 4 Has Flawed Antenna Design

Nicole Martinelli ()

Consumer Reports says the iPhone 4 has a design flaw with the antenna that adversly affects reception, and cannot recommend buying the iPhone.

The leading consumer magazine says the “death grip” reception problems are not software related, as Apple earlier claimed, and cannot be fixed with an update.

“When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone’s lower left side—an easy thing, especially for lefties—the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you’re in an area with a weak signal, ” the Consumer Reports wrote in a blogpost. “Due to this problem, we can’t recommend the iPhone 4.”

The magazine tested three iPhone 4s in a radio frequency isolation chamber, which cuts off outside radio signals, and connected the phones to a special cell-tower emulator inside the chamber. The magazine also tested an iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre and found none had reception issues. The magazine says its tests question Apple’s honesty about the issue.

Our findings call into question the recent claim by Apple that the iPhone 4’s signal-strength issues were largely an optical illusion caused by faulty software that “mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength.”

Consumer Reports is instead recommending consumers buy — or keep — the older iPhone 3GS or check out another kind of smartphone altogether.

If you still want an iPhone 4, or already own one, the magazine advises covering the antenna gap with a piece of duct tape or another thick, non-conductive material. “It may not be pretty, but it works,” the magazine said. This quick fix is in lieu of a case, which the magazine admits it hasn’t been able to test yet.

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AppleCare: iPhone 4 Software Fix Won’t Solve “Death Grip” Reception Issues

Consumer Reports had earlier reported that the iPhone 4 death grip was probably no big deal.

Via Consumerist

16 comments »

About the author

nicole_martinelli

Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on Twitter , Facebook and Google+.

If you're doing something new/cool that's Apple related, email her about it.

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Posted in iPhone, News |

  • http://deoclicianocgiportfolio.wordpress.com Deocliciano Okssipin Vieira

    jumping on conclusion.
    But it is Apple fault, with so many competitors at almost every corner Apple just maintain its cool and kisses the silence (maybe they are working it out).
    Apple should learn with Obama, it is not always cool to be cool.

  • GregWard

    Interesting point – this article, and most others, talks about this being a left-handed issue. I’m right-handed which means I typically hold my phone with my left hand so I can tap keys etc with my right. Am I alone in this? Or is the “left-handed” issue actually impacting on a lot of righties?

  • Darcy McGee

    My company is working on a solution: people who have this problem can have the offending hand surgically removed, thus avoiding the problem of holding the phone in the wrong hand in the future.

  • Tom Koger

    As a shareholder, I am outraged by Apple’s stupid move to a new phone case that would create this unnecessary firestorm of bad publicity. FYI, my wife and I both have owned all 4 versions of the iPhone. What was the reason to change the case to a design that would cause so much confusion and require the repurchase of cases and other accessories? Most buyers purchase a case that covers up the cool part of the phone anyway.

    However, as a iPhone user, and one who can reproduce the disappearing bars at will, I must say that I have never seen the volume of bad information regarding a device in my life. Even Consumer Reports duct tape observation is complete BS. I can reproduce the problem with the Apple bumper case attached to my iPhone 4 (does not drop as many bars, but at least 2), so duct tape would not work for me. So if Apple gave every iPhone 4 customer a free bumper case, it would not satisfy everyone. Incidentally, I can make the iPhone 4 go down to 1 bar but never to out of service.

    Now the good news: I have not had one dropped call on the iPhone4, nor has my wife. I called another iPhone 4 friend and we talked for over an hour where, without the bumper case, I made the iPhone 4 go down to only 1 bar for probably 80% of the time and the call did not fail. I have performed speedtest.net with 1 bar and with 5 bars several times with no speed difference.

    In summary: As a shareholder, I am outraged by the unnecessary bad public relations caused by Apple, but as a user, I could not be happier with the iPhone 4. As far as my wife and I are concerned, this is the best iPhone ever.

  • MarkByrn

    The problem here is Lord Jobs and the Ivory Tower syndrome. Apple should have been way ahead of this issue and immediately acknowledged the problem and that a real fix would be forthcoming. Instead, we get insulting prevarications in the form of how to hold the phone and/or it’s a display problem. The problem will go from bad to worse if Apple puts out a software update that merely masks the problem as opposed to actually fixing it – if a software could have fixed the problem, the update would have been already out last week if not earlier. Me thinks Lord Job’s need to wake up from his delusional slumber and deliver a handful of pink slips to the senior engineers responsible for this embarrassing debacle while coming up with a plan to stem the bleeding.

  • joh

    The thing is that I would be very surprised if there would be any solution to that problem that didn’t involve a complete redesign of the iPhone. To stuff the antenna into the case would mean a new case (made from plastic) and new innards, since there is no room for an antenna inside the case. Or you’d have to wrap a new case around it, which is exactly the same as to buy a case.

    No, Apple has gone totally wrong with this design. They should have put the new display and the new chips into the old iPhone case. Both are thinner/smaller anyway, so they could have made the case a bit thinner, with the same features as this iPhone 4. Evolution, no revolution, but what was wrong with the iPhone 3GS? Not much, really. With the A4 CPU, the new display, the new camera and the front camera it would have been just an even better iPhone.

    Apple can now start to include a free bumper but not much more. And until next year we will have seen three or four new generations of Android phones.

    I mean, I still like the iPhone 4 but with the competition being so fierce making such a mistake WILL affect sales. Add to this the iPad with its only 256MB of RAM and no camera and it’s hard to avoid the impression that Apple is rushing out things. They’re making mistakes at a point in time when they just need to do everything right.

    Honestly, I can see the smartphone and tablet market going the same way as the PC market earlier. The more open system with more options and more hardware offers will be crappier but price and options and “good enough” are more important to many people than perfection. Let Apple even fail at the perfection front and you get the equivalent to PCs with a crappy UI (MS Windows) winning against the Mac. Android is what Windows was with PCs and Apple is what Apple ever was: Brilliant at times and stupid at times.

  • Mark

    I’ve had mine in a case since the day I got it. I’ve never had a problem with reception. Actually its much better than my 3GS. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t use a case. If you drop it, (and everyone does), its much better to be in a case.

  • Steven

    It still tops all other phones even with the bad rating…. Hmmm, what’s really going on here?

  • Gilbert Wormac

    Wow, there is so much negative press about this Phone. Just return the phone if it’s not working for you.

    If a million people return their phone, then Apple sure as hell will fix it.

  • Chris

    This consumer reports guy is not showing us anything we didn’t already know. Place your hand or finger over the slit in lower left corner = signal degradation. Doesn’t matter if it’s real signals from AT&T or bombardment in a lab.

    So the point I’m making here is… how in the world does this prove it’s a hardware issue??

    Not that I’m saying it’s not hardware-related. I mean, logic alone should be sufficient to tell you that you don’t put the antenna on the outside.

  • BoxMac

    Apple is riding a wave of unprecedented proportions that only gets bigger by the day.

    Obviously the DeathGrip’s quite real & if they don’t straighten it out NOW with a recall or whatever
    this will be a HUGE derailing PR disaster for them with the meme-o’-the-moment general public.

    Gizmodo started this ball rolling & between *that* and iGate, Steve must be incapacitatedly apoplectic right now ….

  • Stig

    Have used the “4″ here in Tokyo since last Saturday, and I can assure anyone that this is the greatest mobile phone ever. I did buy a Japanese 3rd party translucent silicon case for it, and thanks to US press info, I avoid touching “my girl’s” sensitive spots. The reception is far greater than my previous 3G and 3GS in the same locations and network.

    So

  • http://www.iphone4case.org.uk iphone 4 case

    Every iPhone user is very keen to get amazing accessories with his iPhone. Manufacturing companies also know the eagerness and they continuously launching new and exciting accessories.The selection of an case for an iPhone is a matter of requirement and priorities. Luckily, there is no paucity of options available.

  • http://www.lugaresdemexico.com/ SiliconTlaco

    Mi iPhone 4 no tiene ningún problema de señal ya lo tape por todos lados y no pierdo nunca la señal, entonces? que dicen a eso?

  • magnum

    I have the iPhone 4 and it gets better reception than any phone I’ve ever used (yes, I use a bumper.) I believe this is BECAUSE of the new external antenna design. True, if you hold the phone over one small sliver on the lower lefthand side of the phone you will loose signal. JUST DON’T DO THAT! Left or right handed, it’s not difficult. This phone presents a significant improvement in reception along with an insignificant inconvenience. This issue is unbelievably overblown. Indeed, what really is going on here? Jealousy and/or bitterness over Apples “fan boy” culture? Some other nefarious ulterior motive? A corporate conspiracy perhaps?

  • Brian H

    Will a dab of clear nail polish fix the problem without hurting the looks?