Your glass will always be half empty with an iphone in it.
The weirdest (but working) iPhone 4 reception trick I have ever heard
31–40 of 43 posts
Re: The weirdest (but working) iPhone 4 reception trick I have ever heard
#32So, he's in this uber cool restaurant, spending a nice evening with his daughter. And the first things he thinks of? Yeah, "checking in" and "tweeting". Am I the only one who finds this sad?
Re: The weirdest (but working) iPhone 4 reception trick I have ever heard
#33Not really weird. There's a boundary there between the air in the glass and the glass itself. So you've got a dielectric boundary and you'll get some reflection going on inside the glass. Lots and lots of things reflect radio waves to a certain extent. I'd guess that's what's happening here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-line-of-sight_propagation#R...
I don't think by weird the op meant "Wow, this is a miracle that can't be explained by science." It was more along the lines of "Wow, this interesting and I would never have expected that to work. And boy would it look strange if everyone walked around with their phone in a cup."
And I agree with that statement. So yes it is weird, despite the fact that it has an explanation.
Re: The weirdest (but working) iPhone 4 reception trick I have ever heard
#34This is questionable. A couple stray observations for the boffins at HN: 1. Confirmation bias. Sure it works, because when it doesn't we don't think about it or publicize it on the net. 2. Glass holder removes your big meaty hand from the equation. Your hand absorbs radiation and is the equivalant of wrapping a phone in a steak. 3. Only works because the iphone radio is such a mess. You may be looking at bar strength…
I love that people are thinking about confirmation bias, but you can't really "confirmation bias" your way from "I can't receive calls at all" to "Now I'm getting three bars and reliable signals of some types". There's an empirical state transition there, not just an opinion the way "I went from 2.1 bars to 2.8 bars" is unreliable.
Re: The weirdest (but working) iPhone 4 reception trick I have ever heard
#35Not really weird. There's a boundary there between the air in the glass and the glass itself. So you've got a dielectric boundary and you'll get some reflection going on inside the glass. Lots and lots of things reflect radio waves to a certain extent. I'd guess that's what's happening here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-line-of-sight_propagation#R...
I don't think by weird the op meant "Wow, this is a miracle that can't be explained by science." It was more along the lines of "Wow, this interesting and I would never have expected that to work. And boy would it look strange if everyone walked around with their phone in a cup." And I agree with that statement. So yes it is weird, despite the fact that it has an explanation.
Is this a good illustration of the phenomenon?
The glass is the antenna and the shape (here a circle) radius at a given point is the signal strength at that point.
The glass is exploiting some anisotropies(?) in the cell phone signals. i.e. the red arc is somehow bigger than the black arc. I am using the circle as a way to depict an isotropic signal. If the signal is not isotropic, the shape would be somewhat more bulged in the left region (pear-shaped).
Sorry, IANAP, if someone can explain it better...
Re: The weirdest (but working) iPhone 4 reception trick I have ever heard
#36So, he's in this uber cool restaurant, spending a nice evening with his daughter. And the first things he thinks of? Yeah, "checking in" and "tweeting". Am I the only one who finds this sad?
Those two things probably take 30 seconds total.
Re: The weirdest (but working) iPhone 4 reception trick I have ever heard
#37It probably has more to do with antenna response characteristics due to polarization (antenna is similar to a j dipole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slim_Jim_(antenna) or a modified inverted V (since it's a U) maybe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_vee_antenna ) + isolation from your hand. Without your hand (which is similar to a non-efficient ground plane) screwing up the antenna response, a vertical iphone would likely have better reception, especially if it's a dipole-like.
Re: The weirdest (but working) iPhone 4 reception trick I have ever heard
#38It probably has more to do with antenna response characteristics due to polarization (antenna is similar to a j dipole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slim_Jim_(antenna) or a modified inverted V (since it's a U) maybe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_vee_antenna ) + isolation from your hand. Without your hand (which is similar to a non-efficient ground plane) screwing up the antenna response, a vertical iphone woul…
Also of note, most antennas at towers tend to be an array of dipoles with reflectors.
Re: The weirdest (but working) iPhone 4 reception trick I have ever heard
#39Re: The weirdest (but working) iPhone 4 reception trick I have ever heard
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think by weird the op meant "Wow, this is a miracle that can't be explained by science." It was more along the lines of "Wow, this interesting and I would never have expected that to work. And boy would it look strange if everyone walked around with their phone in a cup." And I agree with that statement. So yes it is weird, despite the fact that it has an explanation.
Is this a good illustration of the phenomenon? http://i.imgur.com/cDgjD.jpg The glass is the antenna and the shape (here a circle) radius at a given point is the signal strength at that point. The glass is exploiting some anisotropies(?) in the cell phone signals. i.e. the red arc is somehow bigger than the black arc. I am using the circle as a way to depict an isotropic signal. If the signal is not isotropic, the sh…
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