81–90 of 145 posts
Does anyone know what "AT&T’s recently recommended formula" actually means?
AT&T's formula must be not so heavily weighted towards 5 bars as what Apple is currently using.
But the solution doesn't really address the real complaint -- that holding the phone in some ways seemed to change the number of bars shown. It seems like overall the bars display will be conservative now, so people just won't perceive such a large drop in the number of bars.
Oops, our phone isn't broken, we just "mistakenly" said the network didn't suck when it did.
The fix coming must be more evenly distributed aka more accurate.
What a strange coincidence. Just after releasing a phone that uses a metal ring all around the chassis as an antenna (which is something that perplexed every engineer living outside of the reality distortion field as soon as they saw the first pictures of the phone), they discovered that they've always used the wrong algorithm to calculate the signal strength.
Not really a coincidence: users are much more likely to complain about this problem due to the new antenna design being so prominent in the marketing. If Apple never said that the antenna was the metal rim (and assumingly are telling the truth here) then people would not be forming these theories.
I contrast Ive's comments and iFixit's teardown with the Keynote presentation, and think someone's simplifying something in the explanations.
Oops, our phone isn't broken, we just "mistakenly" said the network didn't suck when it did.
When Apple was writing the signal strength algorithm, they forgot to account for the reality distortion field.
From paragraph six, "We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see." It's a psychological thing. A few extra pixels do indeed give the illusion of better network reception, albeit the actual level doesn't change. Similar to designing progress bars, the actual progress is hidden from the user. Instead, the user is presented with the illusion that the process is progressing faster than i…
* No connection * Slow/intermittent connection
On the other hand, all this hype is encouraging people to perform Science, with cameras, posted to YouTube, so maybe there is a purpose to all of this.
So you're also telling me that my 3G reception is actually worse then I had previous thought? All those places I get 4 bars are really 2? I guess this explains why I often got dropped calls when I have "full reception". Wonder why they didn't mention the proximity problem. From what I have heard that's actually more annoying then the signal issue.
And the only reason Apple made this PR release is to get ahead lf this story. I've had people ask me if I'm returning my iPhone because "I heard it can't make calls when you hold it wrong" or other crap. They're just trying to respin the story that the public has latched onto.
I think it's funny to imagine what would happen if Apple didn't tell us what's wrong and just released an update. Suddenly the voodoo bars work better and everyone says, "Oh wow Apple's firmware engineers are geniuses! I no longer lose 4 bars when holding my phone!"
"We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see." Translation: Don't worry about the signal, we have BARS!
hmmm... looks like they are backing out the 2.1 OS fix that "Improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display". That always seemed fishy to me. http://gizmodo.com/5048905/iphone-21-update-available-now Especially entertaining is the update note at the bottom: The "3G signal strength display" fix certainly seems to have done something for my iPhone 3G: it's sitting here in the same place on my desk, and has gone fr…