Apple to Patch iPhone's 4 Reception Glitch
Apple on Friday denied that the iPhone 4 had a faulty antenna, claiming that the problem was the software that determines how many signal bars to display.
Apple said that's the reason behind widespread complaints from users that the iPhone 4 can show a sudden plunge in signal strength when they hold it in a way that covers a small black strip on one edge of the phone. That drop seems exaggerated because the phone can wrongly display four or five bars of signal strength when it shouldn't, Apple said.
"Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don?t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place, "Apple said in a statement.
