What's the Problem With iPhone 3G Reception? 322
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."
iphone through the iwall (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
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.
The real summary. (Score:1, Interesting)
Although no one outside of Apple and AT&T â" and maybe a chipmaker or two â" really knows, that has not kept others from speculating,
Wait a minute - you think only Apple, AT&T, and a chipmaker really knows? That's where you're hugely mistaken.
A lot of people know. In fact, in the past week there have been hundreds of blog entries and posts on this, and some magazines and newspapers have since picked it up since the groundswell!
It is important to report that it is being talked about all over the world - in Europe, Canada, and and United States. That kind of discussion helps keep the focus on Apple and the chipset manufacturers, and keep it off the carriers. Of course, some have fallen away from that strategy and are also including a discussion about their "excellent" or "sucky" carrier, depending on who they like or dislike.
For a bloated overpriced phone, you get what you paid for. I am, without a doubt, going for a Verizon phone with a new LG Dare - 3.5G technology, powerful touchscreen, corporate support, backed by America's most capable network.
Not new to iPhone (Score:5, Interesting)
same deal on my Treo (Score:1, Interesting)
I've had a Treo with AT&T (Windows Mobile 6) for about 1.5 years. I live about 4 miles north of downtown Chicago and I only get 1-2 bars (out of 4) of 3G reception in my 3rd floor apartment. When I go downtown I can get 3-4 bars. Interestingly, when I get to work (high rise building) I can consistently get 4 bars unless I go to the top floor (where I cannot get any signal).
I don't think this is an iPhone problem.
All of this being said, with 1 bar or 2 bars, I don't drop calls and when I tether the phone to my laptop (which the Treo and AT&T support) with the very simple and straight forward Windows Mobile software I can get 100-120 kilo bytes / second download speeds over a USB cable and 50-60 kilo bytes / second over Bluetooth. When tethering over USB, i can at the same time use my bluetooth headset and make a phone call without either suffering. All with 1-2 bars of signal.
I really don't have any problems with AT&T except when I'm on the top two floors of a 49 story building.
Re:Wide-spread discussion. (Score:2, Interesting)
A Cellphone is two parts
1) a radio transceiver
and
2) a computer ,
I wonder whose radio it uses ?
. A poorly designed radio can destroy a cellphones usability , dropped calls, poor range, noisy calls .
And the consumer is foolishly not concerned with this until it's really poor .
This radio part of a cellphone is probably the most important .
Re:Not new to iPhone (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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.
Apple WiFi Sucks - it's like they don't know how! (Score:2, Interesting)
I seem to have the opposite problem, very poor wifi speeds!
My new iPhone 3G works great with 3G. No problems there so far, although I've not traveled around too much with it.
What seems to be a problem is the iPhone connecting to wifi spots... in that the attained speeds are so arrevatingly slow that I turn it off! This of course is fine since at the momen since I've not exceeded the monthly ball and chain set by the money sucking service provider.
However, it's supposed to work with Wifi modems. I have a linksys N wifi modem that my mac book pro is connected to so there are no speed problems with my internet connection. That's just fine. It's the wifi connection.
Apple seems to have trouble with their iPhone and Mac Books connecting to Wifi modems by other manufacturers. At one point I had to shut off the burst mode on my linksys because it was crashing my mac book pro with OSX 10.5 no less!!!
Now I don't even bother with wifi at home with my Apple products. Sigh.
Re:I like the "keypad" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:iphone through the iwall (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:iphone through the iwall (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Apple Product Cycle. (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: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.
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.
Re:"I love the phont, but..." (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:"I love the phont, but..." (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll will state non-anonymously that I will not buy another iphone for the exact same reasons. I'll go back to the multiple devices I used to have before the iphone when this one dies. Are there any other phones out there with as good a browser? Maybe the wife would like my iphone.
Firmware is rose colored glasses... (Score:2, Interesting)
A bit of seriousness here. One bar, four bars, five bars - this is no real info at all. At least in the Amateur Radio world, there is objective testing as to what S-9 on the meter means (50 uV @ 50 ohms).
There is no such testing done on cellphones. I have never seen it done. If there was objective testing done, I wonder really how bad the results would be.
I was out on a bike ride and right under a AT&T tower resting and I was getting only two bars. Go figure.
Personally, signal strength displays are orchestrated frauds foisted on the public by the cellphone manufacturer and carrier working in collusion and marketed as being truth when in reality they bear nothing of the sort.
Re:"I love the phont, but..." (Score:3, Interesting)
"... the iphone is a half-assed phone, a half-assed media player and a half assed-pda. It gets NONE of those functions right."
Actually, I like the phone. It makes many things easy to access and obvious (like conference calling/joining, vm message handling) that were downright arcane on my previous RAZR.
As to being a media player, I find the "touch" interface to be far superior to that of the iPod, and especially to that of the new "split-screen" iPod interface. One could always wish for more storage space, but I expect that to improve as flash storage densities improve and prices drop. And the screen definitely beats out nearly any other phone for watching movies and TV shows.
And I might once have agreed about it being only a so-so PDA, but now we have the App Store. One can bemoan the many Tip Calculators and the like, but one has only to look at applications like Evernote or Salesforce Mobile to see the potential.
Finally, I for one don't miss carrying a phone and a pda and an ipod and a media player and a pocket camera and a gps and all of the associated cords and chargers needed for each one. Is it as good as a dedicated device in all of those categories? Of course not.
But it's great in some cases, adequate in others, and definitely better than the device I left at home because I didn't feel like being an electronic pack horse that day...
Re:"I love the phont, but..." (Score:3, Interesting)
the interface is great. It handles voicemail, Internet surfing, mapping, and many other functions far more smoothly and easily than any other phone out there. For gods sake when the iPhone was introduced the razor represented the best of American phone options. It is definitely possible to love a phone with reception problems, just as easily as it is to hate 100 regular phones that had great reception and an interface designed by ADHD teenagers in desperate need of a bugzilla account.
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.