PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
A US consumer organisation has suggested that the best way of tackling the iPhone 4’s signal problem might be to tape up the corner of the device.
The advice from Consumer Reports, the US equivalent of Which?, will probably not sit well with Apple fanboys and slick city execs, who may not want to ‘deface’ their iPhone with duct tape, but it apprently solves the widely reported signal problem.
CR’s tests confirmed customer complaints that holding the iPhone 4’s lower left side can cause it to lose reception.
“The signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you’re in an area with a weak signal. Due to this problem, we can’t recommend the iPhone 4,” CR’s Mike Gikas said in an official blog.
Three units of the iPhone 4 were tested alongside the 3GS and the Palm Pre in CR’s “radio frequency isolation chamber” with only Apple’s new device suffering signal loss problems.
“Our findings call into question the recent claim by Apple that the iPhone 4’s signal-strength issues were largely an optical illusion caused by faulty software that ‘mistakenly displays two more bars than it should for a given signal strength’,” said Gikas
“We did, however, find an affordable solution for suffering iPhone 4 users: Cover the antenna gap with a piece of duct tape or another thick, non-conductive material. It may not be pretty, but it works.”
Apple is said to have deleted comments from its message board that refer to CR’s critical report.
