The Verizon iPhone 4 has the same antennagate issue as the GSM version, Consumer Reports says. And even though the iPhone 4 is one of the publication’s most highly-rated smartphones, it can’t recommend it.
The Verizon iPhone 4 has a problem that could cause the phone to drop calls, or be unable to place calls, in weak signal conditions, Consumer Reports engineers have found in lab tests.
That’s all weel and good, but in real life, Verizon’s customers aren’t complaining about dropped calls or signal degradation. On Verizon’s network, the antennagate issue is largely theoretical. Even though it’s possible to show signal degradation in the lab — as Consumer Reports claims it did — you can put as many fingers as you want across the gap and it still won’t drop a call.
Consumer Reports: Mind the gap, our tests show.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
19 responses to “Verizon iPhone 4 Also Has Antennagate Issues, Consumer Reports Says”
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If 99% have no problems, they have the highest probability of posting so in comments.
This is not the issue. CR cannot recommend a phone, however much they rate it otherwise, if it potentially may compromise the experience of the <1% users.
Apple doesn’t blurb about what <1% means. It can mean 1000’s, or in the case of the earlier situation, 10,000 to 20,000 iphone users with genuine lemon phones on their hands they have to ‘hold another way’.
If you’re happy with your phone, fine. CR is telling people what can happen. The test conditions are severe, but the other phones passed it. The iPhone did NOT, and the potential is there.
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I had this problem before too, but since I use the sleeve from GETPOWERPAD this problem has gone, moreover I can charge my iPhone 4 wirelessly! Wireless power is like magic!
I had this problem before too, but since I use the sleeve from GETPOWERPAD this problem has gone, moreover I can charge my iPhone 4 wirelessly!
Silly! CR is stupid to tell all of that!
Does anybody still care what CR says ?
It only seems to be a REAL problem for tech and blog writers, not in real-world situations, since there are not hordes of dissatisfied users storming Apple Stores, Verizon stores, Best Buys, and AT&T stores. And a recent study I read about last weed showed that 92% of ALL cellphone users put some sort of a case on their phone to protect it from dropping, water, scratches, etc. Therefore, non-issue.
Did you see the way they were holding the phone? Who does that?
If they’re going to say that they can’t recommend a phone if it’s in any possible to attenuate the signal, no matter how unlikely it is that someone would hold it that way, they need to say that they don’t recommend that people use cell phones.
Theiy should take a tour at Apple’s test lab. It is nothing like CR’s.
http://www.apple.com/antenna/
I thought this guy was Rod Blagojevich in his new job! Ha, ha, ha!
Interesting and informative post
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