Antenna Issue on iPhone 4, Hardware or Software?

[Jeff Campbell]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/30/apple_posts_five_new_job_listings_for_antenna_engineers.html' target='_blank'>http://www.appleinsider.com/article..._engineers.html</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"An iPhone user demonstrated in a Vimeo video that cupping the phone to cause its signal bar to reach zero did not have a discernible effect on the actual quality of the call, suggesting that phone's software may be excessively sensitive in reporting signal drop."</em></p><p><object width="601" height="338" data="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=12951893&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=00ADEF&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=12951893&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=00ADEF&amp;fullscreen=1" /></object></p><p>I haven't had any dropped calls, or degradation in the call quality on any of the calls I've made on my iPhone 4, but there appear to be some issues. And coincidentally, Apple is hiring some engineers with expertise in this issue. So is there really a problem or, as the video suggests, is it sensitive software and much ado about nothing? What are your thoughts? Has anyone experienced problems with call quality?</p>

[Bob12]

Good possibility. Before I put the case on my iP4, I was talking to a friend who had also just gotten his and we were discussing a setting and using the speaker function. I noticed the signal strength indicator showed no bars, but he was talking at the time, and there was no degradation of the signal -- still loud and clear.

[Michael Knutson]

Back in the early iPhone days (I've forgotten exactly when) there were some problems with the OS incorrectly (very incorrectly) reporting battery usage, and a fix was provided within days. I wonder if this could be a similar issue, since reports are filtering-in now of similar behavior with QoS (quality of service) on calls. I wouldn't be surprised if this requires a simple tweak to fix ...