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Comment by shin_lao | Hacker News Reader

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 sporadic problem. Whether this is a problem in the manufacturing process (which would explain why not all telephones have the problem) or the design, only Apple knows.

At first they say there is no antenna problem. Then they say it's a bug in the software. Now they say "well all phones have this problem".

I think inspector Columbo would say "Aahh! Of course, all phones have the problem... Now Mr. Jobs, just one more thing..."

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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 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 clearly not enough when the phone seems to lose the signal altogether.

Edit: Jobs said clearly that the 4 drops ~1 calls more per 100 than the 3GS. 1 per 100 -> 2 per 100.

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 call per month and for people in shitty area that could be multiple a week on the high end (some people never drop calls on the iPhone)

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.

Well, the area where the user uses their phone obviously affects both the iPhone 3GS as well as 4. So if a user has 1/100th the number of call drops on the 3GS, they will see a smaller increase with the iPhone 4, i.e. less than one percentage point. The “average joe” user will experience the increase given by Jobs. And finally, those who drop several calls a day with the 3GS will likely have returned their iPhone 4 already.

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.

It looks like lots of people just read live blogs and second hand accounts. It's shocking to see how easily and quickly the facts get mutated these days.

Just to show I'm somewhat unbiased on the issue -- if we want to question Apple's data why did they show AT&T store returns and not Apple Store returns?

You lost me. AT&T's data, according to Jobs, suggests the iPhone 4 drops one additional call per hundred when compared to the 3GS.

"It means that if the 3GS drops 1% of calls, the iPhone 4 drops 1.01% of calls."

"If the 3GS drops 1% of calls", it drops one call per hundred.

That means the iPhone 4 drops two calls per hundred, or 2% of one hundred calls. Not 1.01%.

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".

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.

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.

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