Here’s my two year old iPhone 3g showing the exact same reception drop as the iPhone 4. Hold it the same way people are holding the iPhone 4 and you get the exact same drop in reception. And, just like people are reporting, having slightly damp palms makes the issue worse, and putting it in a case alleviates it. I’ve had this phone for over 2 years and I’ve never noticed any problems with reception in daily use. It was only when people started posting about the iPhone 4′s problems that I decided to try it. Clearly then the iPhone 4 does not have a major design flaw, as much as Gizmodo would like everyone to think, as previous generation phones exhibit the EXACT SAME PROBLEM (as does the Nexus one and undoubtedly lots of others). Perhaps if “journalists” did a better job of doing a bit of research before jumping to conclusions we could have avoided some of the calamitous headlines over the past few days.
One caveat though. I couldn’t get my fiance’s 3g to do the same thing. She’s still running iOs 3.x so it’s possible it is a software issue. I didn’t try for very long though and I was in an area of good reception at the time.
p.s. Apologies for the shoddy camera work. I was trying to hand hold my 5D in one hand and do this in the other.
p.p.s. if the video isn’t showing up yet, you tube appears to be still processing it. It’s showing up sometimes for me and not others.
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I’ve only been a reader here for a few months, but I want to tell you that your thinking, as well as your writing, is clear, reasonable, and even handed.
I was pleased to see this piece about reproducing the problem, as my own new iPhone suffers from reduced signal strength unless I hold it carefully. And, as luck would have it, I have both my own 3GS, which I upgraded to iOS 4 last week, and my daughters, which has iOS 3 still.
Guess what? Your speculation is spot on! My 3GS loses bars when held in even a soft death grip, while my daughters shows no such effect!
If that’s not corroboration, even proof, that it’s software related, it comes pretty close.
Yea, my iPhone 3g also goes to searching for signal when held in the “deathgrip”. I have never noticed it bofore.
I can get my 3GS to drop A bar if I hold it in the proverbial death grip. That’s going from 5 bars to 4, mind. Not really very deathy, is it? I remember my old 2003 era Nokia 3586i had an internal antenna and the instructions said not to touch the upper part of the phone when calling someone. So, like you say, this isn’t new. This is something that happens when you trade the functionality of a whip antenna for a plate-style internal one. This is also a case of the death-to-Apple brigade finding a new stick to beat their dead horse with.