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What's the Problem With iPhone 3G Reception?
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Aug 17, 2008 08:26 AM
from the solar-flares dept.
from the solar-flares dept.
CWmike writes "Apple's iPhone 3G was just a couple of days old when reports began trickling onto the company's support forum from dissatisfied customers complaining about poor reception. Although no one outside of Apple and AT&T — and maybe a chipmaker or two — really knows, that has not kept others from speculating, or in a few cases, making claims based on unnamed sources. What's going on? We may not have all the answers, but we do have questions. Gregg Keizer put together everything we know in a FAQ on the griping about iPhone 3G reception."
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Hardware: Infineon Chipset May Be Cause of IPhone 3G Issues 298 comments
JagsLive sends along a CNet blog piece about a plausible theory to explain the iPhone 3G connection problems many users have experienced. Apple has not acknowledged any such problems. "Richard Windsor of Nomura published a research note... Tuesday singling out the iPhone 3G's chipset, made by Infineon, as the probable culprit for the reception problems we reported on Monday. The dropped calls, service interruptions, and abrupt network switches experienced by iPhone 3G users reminded Windsor of similar complaints five years ago, when 3G phones were first launched in Europe. 'We believe that these issues are typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack where we are almost certain that Infineon is the 3G supplier,' Windsor wrote. 'This is not surprising as the Infineon 3G chipset solution has never really been tested in the hands of users. Some people will not experience these problems as it is only in areas where the radio signal weakens that the immaturity of the stack really shows.'"
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With the fees that Rogers charges in Canada (Score:5, Funny)
We've all made our own Canadian version of the iPhone:
1. take your regular plain old cellphone
2. buy an iPod touch
3. buy duct-tape
4. if you can't figure out step four by yourself, please return your Handyman membership card to Red Green.
Re:With the fees that Rogers charges in Canada (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Wide-spread discussion. (Score:5, Informative)
And there is an article (auto-translated article in link) in the Swedish magazine Ny Teknik [google.com] (New Tehcnology) about this too.
So it's a problem that is well discussed these days.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There's also some discussion at finnish technology news sites. One site tells that "3G problems have been reported from USA, Great Britain, Germany, Sweden and Japan so it looks like this is not operator related problem" (my translation).
Re:Wide-spread discussion. (Score:4, Informative)
Infineon.
But the problem may lie with the way Apple's software uses the radio [businessweek.com].
Parent
Re:Wide-spread discussion. (Score:5, Funny)
But the problem may lie with the way Apple's software uses the radio [businessweek.com].
I know that I have full faith in the detailed engineering analysis ordered by a speculating stock broker. Which was then off-handedly barked to a respected journal such as Business Week.
It is good to see others do too. That's why our economy is so awesomely strong.
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Re:Wide-spread discussion. (Score:5, Interesting)
And from another source [cnet.com] there have been information that the Infineon chipset never had been tested in a production environment.
And if it is the chipset it may be possible that a software upgrade is insufficient.
So I suspect that we haven't heard the last of this story yet.
At least - this is the danger of being the first on new technology, and I'm happy that I didn't buy the iPhone. Even if it is a good design it seems to be more design and less function.
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Not True (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Samsung handsets use the same Infineon 3G chipset and side by side have been shown to not have the same problems as the iphone
2)I have an iphone. It worked great for 1 week and then the data service stopped working.
The phone hasnt changed. It's a network issue. As more iphones have come on in big cities they just cant serve the demand.
So its the phone which could be performing better (as seen by the side by side Sansung comparison) >and its the network (as seen by many people whose service only recently went to hell but used to be fine)
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Re:Wide-spread discussion. (Score:5, Funny)
A Cellphone is two parts ,
1) a radio transceiver
and
2) a computer
<SteveJobsRDF>
... and an iPod, and an Internet communications device!
</SteveJobsRDF>
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WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know if this is a joke or not... The general drive to push products at an increasing speed forces the manufacturers to push out sub-standard devices on the market.
And many of the devices are programmed mainly in C/C++ which we all know is a double-edged technology since it gives good performance but it is also prone to weird bugs like wild pointers etc.
Re:WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? (Score:4, Funny)
The post is from "mrSteveBallmer"... links to the "Fake Steve Ballmer" blog... and you're not sure if it's a joke or not?
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iphone through the iwall (Score:5, Interesting)
"I love the phont, but..." (Score:3, Insightful)
What's wrong with you? How would you "love" your phone if you can't use it for its primary purpose? Is it mandatory to "love" this phone? Would you burn in hell if you don't? Or most of the people just lack balls to say that you don't "love" it anymore?
Mass acceptance by fo
Re:"I love the phont, but..." (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
[sigh] wankers like you are far more rabid than the average mac user.
And nobody has anything against the average apple user. Perfectly rational reasonable people for the most part I would assume. Just like the average Windows user, or the average Linux user, or the average blackberry user, or the average ebook user. They can accept that not everyone wants the same thing from their consumer elexctronics, and are happy to agree that I want to do something that they don't, so Apple products may not suit my needs..
The embarrassing ones are the ones that take any non devotional s
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I note that criticism of Apple is often modded down here on /. - but starting with "I love Apple, but" seems a guaranteed way to avoid this.
Odd, I noted that "I really hate Apple users" seems to work much better.
Re:"I love the phont, but..." (Score:5, Insightful)
What's wrong with you? How would you "love" your phone if you can't use it for its primary purpose? Is it mandatory to "love" this phone? Would you burn in hell if you don't? Or most of the people just lack balls to say that you don't "love" it anymore?
I think what he is trying to say "When it works, its works better than anything else out there in terms of functionality or meeting my personal preference."
Its like old Ultima Online. I loved to play that game to death but the game client was so damn buggy it crashed all the damn time.
It was a very love hate relationship. Sure I could play text muds, but it wasn't the same.
Hope that makes.
Parent
Re:"I love the phont, but..." (Score:4, Informative)
as an iphone owner, I can say, yes it is OK to NOT love the phone. I don't care what they say, the iphone is a half-assed phone, a half-assed media player and a half assed-pda. It gets NONE of those functions right. It has a wonderful browser, and that it it.
I carry one because I got tired of carrying 3 devices, so I settled for a single device that has one good feature and the rest is crap. I previous carried a Zen Vision:M, nice interface, 30GB, 4 hours video, 15 hours audio and it played everything I threw at it, not I have a player that gets about 1.5 hours video, and about 8-10 hours audio, plays 2 formats of audio (mp3 and aac) and plays 2 formats of video. I previously had a PDA that was open enough to allow me to install what I wanted on it with thousands of pieces of software available. My Toshibe e805 was higher resolution, and could act as a USB host to add a mouse and keyboard if I wanted, it could even, with a $20 adapter output to a VGA monitor to allow for powerpoint presentations. It wasn't 3G, but I previously carried a Nokia 6126, which is probably one of their best flip phones.
I DID love those devices, they were all fantastic devices that did their jobs very well. I will not buy another iphone, I will go back to 3 devices when this one dies, and considering the battery problems I am starting to have as I approach the 1 year mark, that is probably going to happen soon. I will miss the great browser on the iphone, but in all honesty, that is the only thing I will miss about the iphone.
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Re:"I love the phont, but..." (Score:5, Funny)
What's wrong with you? How would you "love" your phone if you can't use it for its primary purpose?
Personally, because I despise its primary purpose, but am obligated to carry a cell phone with me.
Unfortunately, my iPhone has so far been way more reliable than my old Sony-Erickson. Anyone know how to enable this poor reception feature?
Parent
Re:"I love the phont, but..." (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not cognitive dissonance, it's called imagination. The ability to imagine how the iPhone would be if it didn't drop all the time. It is that which he is in love with.
And it can be fixed.
Parent
Re:"I love the phont, but..." (Score:5, Insightful)
A feature list does not a product make. If (like me) you were keeping an eye out for a decent, featureful phone in the years before the iPhone came out, then you probably noticed a few phones with incredible feature lists that major phone companies developed but never sold in major markets. Despite the phones' impressive feature lists, they weren't good enough to carry the company logo in a major market like Japan, Korea, or the US. The ones they did sell in the US were just barely usable enough for buyers who craved those features and were willing to put up with a lot of clunkiness, so you can imagine how bad the phones were that they only sold in China.
So then the iPhone came out, and I was like, "Yay, now someone has figured out how to make a feature-filled phone with a decent interface that isn't the size of my fist. Any day now some non-evil carrier will have one. Yay! I can't wait." And I waited for a frickin' year while the cell phone companies continued to come out with crap. I was counting on them to AT LEAST clone the iPhone and come out with a "good-enough" copy of it, maybe a year behind and slightly less stylish, but what does that matter to a hopeless dork like me anyway.
Well, they did take the iPhone seriously. They ran around saying "iPhone competitor" and "iPhone killer" so often it sounded like a religious mantra. But if you judged by the phones they released, it was like they had never seen an iPhone before. They kept making awkward stylus-based smart phones and cooked up a few pathetic "iPhone competitors" like the LG Venus. It became clear that not only were the cell phone makers not going to match the iPhone in 2008, they aren't even on pace to match the original iPhone for years. Certainly not in 2009, unless an Android-based product turns out to have an Apple-like (i.e., highly polished right off the bat) debut.
So today, this very minute actually, I'm walking out the door to buy an iPhone. (How many times I've posted something on Slashdot in defense of the iPhone and wished I could say that! Um, well, two or three times at least.)
I'll sell my soul to AT&T, despite their shameful cooperation with the un-American acts of my embarrassingly un-American American government, because the gap between the iPhone and second-best is just too embarrassingly large. I won't put up with it anymore.
And as usual I'll add my caveat that I'm not interested in a Blackberry, "smart phone," or PDA, so I'm not claiming the iPhone is the clear leader, or even the best product, in those markets.
Parent
Re:"I love the phont, but..." (Score:4, Interesting)
I actually just ordered an iPhone (too lazy to keep calling around when the first four places I called were out of stock) despite the fashion accessory angle, not because of it. I am a typical socially lame Slashdotter who has the same haircut he had fifteen years ago, and I'm worried that I'm going to look like a deluded retard with an iPhone in my hand. "IIIIIIIAM KOOL MY MOM TOLD ME SOOOOOAAAAAHHH AND AAAIH HAVE iPHOOOOOONE"
There's not a "creative" bone in my body. I still freak out when I talk to girls, and it's not because I'm afraid of being outed as a heterosexual or having my styling secrets stolen. I love my boxy black ThinkPad but have a plasticky Dell at home 'cuz it was cheaper. I'm afraid to wear t-shirts with designs on them, because that would be too bold for me. Too much of a risk.
I had boxy glasses frames when thin ones were in, and I have thin frames now that thick plastic ones are cool. That's not because I'm iconoclastic or countercyclical. It's because it takes me that long to summon up the courage to follow the crowd.
Yes, to me, having an iPhone seems like a foolish boast, a pretense I can't back up, like telling everyone at school that I know karate and can kill with my hands. Someone's going to call me on it, and it will result in my humiliation. I am Not Cool Enough for an iPhone. I'm pretty sure Apple stock will drop when I'm seen on the streets with it.
But I'm getting an iPhone because I just can't deny its superiority. It would be an injustice to spend my money on something else. Credit where credit is due, and goddammit I'm tired of putting up with crappy phones when something like the iPhone is available.
Parent
Re:iphone through the iwall (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If your Jesus phone won't work... (Score:5, Funny)
...it's because you're not praying hard enough. Try prostrating yourself towards Cupertino five times a day.
Re:If your Jesus phone won't work... (Score:5, Funny)
I love it! Faith based communications.
If it does not work, you are clearly not worthy.
The bar display does not indicate signal strength, it shows if your aura of cool is sufficient.
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Keyboard is buggy too (Score:4, Interesting)
My reception's fine, but I really wish Apple would hurry up and fix the slow [apple.com] typing [apple.com] bug [apple.com]...
It sounds like a trivial thing, but coupled with the inherent inaccuracy of the iPhone keyboard it makes the phone barely usable for text messaging...
I like the "keypad" (Score:4, Interesting)
I have no problems with the touchscreen on the iPhone, but my wife doesn't like it.
I seem to be able to two thumb type on it faster than my previous phone.
Do you have fat fingers possibly? I really like the error correction, and the fact that it "learns" new words. One of my Farsi speaking friends has added a whole new vocabulary to her phone via this way.
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Re:I like the "keypad" (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:I like the "keypad" (Score:5, Interesting)
On a different note, how do you get it to learn new words? I have it autocorrecting the same words all the time no matter how often I tell it not to.
Parent
The Apple Product Cycle. (Score:5, Funny)
We have now reached Whiny, artistic types post lengthy diatribes about how this terrible design flaw has made the device unusable and scarred them emotionally. [misterbg.org]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Also it's a hard case of "epic QA failure".
What were apple and t-mobile thinking that made them roll out a multimillion dollar product without a friggin' field test? Maybe they had a deadline to meet but I'm quite sure the bill for this blooper will by far dwarf any advantages that they had anticipated. By what I've read on the net it seems like every new iPhone is affected. That means pretty much every new iPhone will be returned... Ouch!
Re:The Apple Product Cycle. (Score:4, Insightful)
By what I've read on the net it seems like every new iPhone is affected.
Don't believe everything you read on the internet. Many iPhones have absolutely no problems, including mine (UK, on O2 network). It is worth considering that most people with a problem will complain, whereas most without one won't bother visiting discussion groups etc.
Parent
re: did apple and at&t knew about the problems (Score:4, Interesting)
There are several reasons that might lead to these
problems:
- bad antenna design
- interference noise from other electronics in the handset
- bugs in protocol processing
The most surprising aspect is that Apple and AT&T
probably knew about this much before the launch. The
amount of testing required on a cell phone to get
certification is enormous. Unless, at&t waived all testing for the iphone, it is pretty certain that they have seen the problems in the lab. And
this is the question. How can they release the
product if they know it has problems?
For anyone interested see the process for GCF and PTRCB certifications, that include both
Over-The-Air tests, drive tests and protocol tests.
For what it's worth...I tried one and returned it. (Score:5, Informative)
I live in a relatively rural area, but close enough to a large city that I can get 3G service at home. I was (and returned to) using a Samsung BlackjackII. I was able to use it without any issues at all and got 3G and EDGE service at and near my home. When I brought the new iphone home, I was unable to get anything other than a standard connection (no EDGE and no 3G) and sometimes I couldn't even get a reliable enough signal to make simple phone calls. After a few days of frustration, I returned it to the store and went back to the BlackjackII.
Just another datapoint.
Not new to iPhone (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not new to iPhone (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
From what I have read, this is a global problem. So no, it has nothing to do with AT&T (or any other phone company) and everything to do with the iPhone.
Re:Not new to iPhone (Score:5, Interesting)
AT&T has had these kind of problems for years with their 3G service, it only took a successful platform to bring their shortcomings into the public light.
I suspect that it's a combination of both: the network problems are just aggravating the iPhone's marginal 3G performance.
After I had the iPhone for a few days (and had departed on a trip to a client with marginal 3G coverage inside their building), I "turned off" 3G in the phone settings, forcing it to fall back to EDGE and stay there. It has worked great in that mode, and I've since left it that way.
You lose the ability to use the network and talk on the phone at the same time, but I rarely do that. If I want to use the Safari browser for anything significant, I take the 3-4 seconds required to turn on 3G for the duration, and turn it off when I'm done.
It appears to significantly extend battery life as well.
Parent
The answer is simple (Score:5, Informative)
Infineon chips. (ex-Siemens)
I had the displeasure of working with products from this company, it is as fun as having a fork stuck in your eye.
Crappy documentation, flaky concepts, incompatible versions, etc.
Lots of uninformed speculation, little data (Score:5, Insightful)
We've got one _securities_ (not engineering) analyst speculating that it's a problem with the chipset, and that it's unfixable. Yeah. Then we've got Businessweek echoing that claim, citing two unnamed sources (one of which is probably the securities analyst, the other of which is likely someone repeating the securities analyst). No technical data whatsoever on those claims.
Then we've got Ny Teknik, which cites a problem between the antenna and the amplifier (I would speculate they are referring to antenna impedence matching). They again cite unnamed sources, but they at least claim there was actual testing done. If this is the case, it would not be fixable in firmware, but it's at least not a design flaw.
On top of that, there's the nature of the problems. Poor signal strength and low speeds both could be caused by the problems of the nature Ny Teknik suggests, but dropping calls when switching from 3G to Edge argues for some sort of firmware problem, dropping calls during the handoff. Of course, it's also possible there are multiple problems; low signal strength exposes a problem with the handoff.
Finally there's the question of how Apple missed it during testing. It seems widespread enough that it would have been noticed, which argues for a manufacturing problem or perhaps a last minute software change.
Re:Lots of uninformed speculation, little data (Score:4, Insightful)
Then we've got Ny Teknik, which cites a problem between the antenna and the amplifier (I would speculate they are referring to antenna impedence matching). They again cite unnamed sources, but they at least claim there was actual testing done. If this is the case, it would not be fixable in firmware, but it's at least not a design flaw.
I find it hard to believe that they would screw up the impedance match. Impedance matching is the most basic precept in RF design. And if they did screw it up, wouldn't that be a design flaw?
Parent
It's probably the fucking network. (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been using 3G in one of the pilot cities since it rolled out many years ago and the problem has always been limited coverage. Even now that the infrastructure is more mature. Going from 3G to non-3G networks isn't a smooth transition, so you might have a very weak signal where there is potential to have a better one.
Go buy a European phone that only works on our 1900MHz frequency and you'll see how limited certain types of coverage can be.
What's wrong is ATT&T Service Sucks (Score:3, Funny)
If AT&T were to make a commercial like Verizon's, the subscribers would be followed around by a bunch of retards (apologies to all the retards that may read Slashdot).
I have calls that sound crystal clear one second and then get dropped the next...while both parties are stationary.
Re:Compatibility (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:The Iphone is Apple's Vista. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, Microsoft -did- try and copy Apple when they made Vista...
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Re:Beware (Score:5, Funny)
a nice girl like you doesn't need a penis
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Re:My experiences (Score:5, Insightful)
Kind of sad that this is the first thing on peoples' minds. Would you not prefer Apple to recall the phones for a fix, or issue a firmware update that takes care of the problem? No.... you were wronged and therefore must sue.
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Re:My experiences (Score:5, Insightful)
Some lawsuits are about vengeance; but that doesn't mean that lawsuits aren't a legitimate means of obtaining redress.
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