RIM on Apple's claims of Blackberry Bold signal loss • Hacker News Board

Re: RIM on Apple's claims of Blackberry Bold signal loss

#41

Post by Geee » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 2:59 PM UTC

fuzzybassoon wrote: post #36

Geee wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is one or less percent unit more, which means that if the 3GS drop rates are 1%, the 4 has drop rate of 2% which is 100% more dropped calls. I made some research on this and found http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0210022 which says basically that drop rates among 720 different carriers have a lognormal distribution with mean of about 2.4%. iPhone 4 might have better RF and baseband chain to compensate, but it's clearl…

Unfortunately, you're misunderstanding what Jobs said. They said it drops ~1 call per hundred than the 3GS, not 1 percentage point more. That's a huge difference. It means that if the 3GS drops 1% of calls, the iPhone 4 drops 1.01% of calls.

What? I don't really get my head around your math or I just misunderstand what you are trying to say. 1 call per 100 calls means one percentage point.

Jobs said: "One or less additional dropped call per hundred calls". I don't know how I should parse this to be "one percent more dropped calls than 3GS".

Re: RIM on Apple's claims of Blackberry Bold signal loss

#42

Post by nlogn » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 3:06 PM UTC

fuzzybassoon wrote: post #36

Geee wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is one or less percent unit more, which means that if the 3GS drop rates are 1%, the 4 has drop rate of 2% which is 100% more dropped calls. I made some research on this and found http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0210022 which says basically that drop rates among 720 different carriers have a lognormal distribution with mean of about 2.4%. iPhone 4 might have better RF and baseband chain to compensate, but it's clearl…

Unfortunately, you're misunderstanding what Jobs said. They said it drops ~1 call per hundred than the 3GS, not 1 percentage point more. That's a huge difference. It means that if the 3GS drops 1% of calls, the iPhone 4 drops 1.01% of calls.

Actually I believe Geee is correct and YOU are misunderstanding Jobs. Here's the actual quote: "...iPhone 4 drops more calls than the 3GS. But how many more calls per hundred does it drop?...The iPhone 4 drops less than ONE call per hundred than the 3GS.” To me this reads clearly that were one to make 100 calls on each device, the iPhone 4 would drop between 0 and 1 more calls than the 3gs which is consistent with Geee's interpretation.

Re: RIM on Apple's claims of Blackberry Bold signal loss

#43

Post by Geee » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 3:29 PM UTC

nkassis wrote: post #34

Geee wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is one or less percent unit more, which means that if the 3GS drop rates are 1%, the 4 has drop rate of 2% which is 100% more dropped calls. I made some research on this and found http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0210022 which says basically that drop rates among 720 different carriers have a lognormal distribution with mean of about 2.4%. iPhone 4 might have better RF and baseband chain to compensate, but it's clearl…

Yeah felt that apple was being a little sneaky with how they were putting out the data. Lets assume that 0.1 calls per hundreds was lost on the 3gs, then 1 more is a huge difference, if the 3gs dropped 3 calls than it's still huge but not as huge so without the 3gs drops per hundreds how do we know wtf 1 more means? 1 more is still a ton, an average user probably does more than 100 calls per month so... that's a drop…

Exactly, in some areas dropped call rates could be as low as one per thousand. Adding one per hundred to this would lead in tenfold increase in dropped calls.

Re: RIM on Apple's claims of Blackberry Bold signal loss

#44

Post by onedognight » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 3:37 PM UTC

statictype wrote: post #23

onedognight wrote: post #20

Crackberry's call for duplication Apple's test? Go to an area where you have full bars while holding the phone gingerly, then change that loose grip to a bit more of a death grip. is flawed given that "full bars" can indicate an arbitrarily strong signal. In order to see the effect Apple demonstrated you will most likely need to be in a location where you just barely have "full bars". Why are we linking to a website…

The statement itself was issued by RIM. I'm pretty sure they know a thing or two about bars and antenna design.

I too am pretty sure RIM knows about about antenna design which is why they didn't deny Apple's claim that many, including their own, smart phones are subject to a grip of death. crackberry (which is what the OP linked to) however insinuate (through their flawed survey) that it wasn't.

Re: RIM on Apple's claims of Blackberry Bold signal loss

#45

Post by brianpan » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 3:39 PM UTC

tjogin wrote: post #18

shin_lao wrote: post #16

So every telephone can get signal attenuation if you hold it in a certain fashion in certain reception conditions. That sounds plausible, although I never experienced the problem with my bb bold, I'm ready to accept this problem can be reproduced. That's not the issue at hand. The issue with the iPhone 4 is that it's very easy to drop calls and get signal attenuation. The reports are too numerous to be just a sporadi…

First. If the problem is as widespread as you think, how do you reconcile that with AT&T's dropped calls statistics that show that it drops less than 1% more calls than the iPhone 3GS? Second. How do you reconcile it with AnandTech's tests that show that the iPhone 4 is better at keeping calls even with a poor signal?

It also may be significant that many people who own an iPhone 4 are deliberately "testing" it and trying to attenuate the signal. That's the first thing I did after turning on mine. With the 3GS, most people weren't aware for how to attenuate the signal and weren't trying to. In my opinion, that "testing" alone could account for the increase in iPhone 4 dropped call rate.

Re: RIM on Apple's claims of Blackberry Bold signal loss

#46

Post by grandalf » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 3:45 PM UTC

onedognight wrote: post #44

statictype wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statement itself was issued by RIM. I'm pretty sure they know a thing or two about bars and antenna design.

I too am pretty sure RIM knows about about antenna design which is why they didn't deny Apple's claim that many, including their own, smart phones are subject to a grip of death. crackberry (which is what the OP linked to) however insinuate (through their flawed survey) that it wasn't.

I could not make my bb curve lose any bars from gripping, holding, etc. I tried very hard...

Re: RIM on Apple's claims of Blackberry Bold signal loss

#47

Post by grandalf » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 3:47 PM UTC

sigzero wrote: post #26

Did you notice RIM didn't deny it?

I can't reproduce it on my bb curve 9800

Re: RIM on Apple's claims of Blackberry Bold signal loss

#48

Post by MWinther » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 3:56 PM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #46

onedognight wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too am pretty sure RIM knows about about antenna design which is why they didn't deny Apple's claim that many, including their own, smart phones are subject to a grip of death. crackberry (which is what the OP linked to) however insinuate (through their flawed survey) that it wasn't.

I could not make my bb curve lose any bars from gripping, holding, etc. I tried very hard...

Just like there are people not being able to reproduce the problem on their iPhone 4.

Re: RIM on Apple's claims of Blackberry Bold signal loss

#49

Post by grandalf » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 4:04 PM UTC

MWinther wrote: post #48

grandalf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could not make my bb curve lose any bars from gripping, holding, etc. I tried very hard...

Just like there are people not being able to reproduce the problem on their iPhone 4.

Point?

Re: RIM on Apple's claims of Blackberry Bold signal loss

#50

Post by OpieCunningham » Sat, Jul 17, 2010, 4:11 PM UTC

Geee wrote: post #33

sigzero wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't false. RIM didn't deny it loses bars when held a certain way. They were just pissed that that Apple showed it to be true. Apple did show it to be true so there is no false claim.

They are really comparing apples to oranges in the sense that they didn't talk about the iPhone's design flaw, just RF shadowing which is obvious. There isn't any phone other than iPhone that loses the signal altogether by just touching one point on the phone.

> There isn't any phone other than iPhone that loses the signal altogether by just touching one point on the phone.

Perhaps, but I'm not entirely convinced that is true. It may be, but it may also be true that other phones do have a one point weakness which isn't marked by a visual cue. It's just that no one has tested a large selection of phones to locate that one point.

Of course, I'm not sure why it matters whether a pinky can drop dB ... you can't hold a phone with just 1 finger touching the side. This is just as much of an issue as arguing all phones have a major weakness because they drop dB when wrapped in aluminum foil.