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“allows engineers to test reception in real-world settings”
I understand the Apple campus has the best AT&T coverage in the nation!
Nice facility. So we can assume that the iPhone 4 was quite thoroughly tested, but somehow it never crossed anyone’s mind that users might hold it differently. A classic oops.
It’s amazing what you can build in a week.
I don’t get why they are showing off this facility.
“Yes we have a 100 million dollar antenna testing facility and we still can’t build a reliable product”
Seems like you are just admitting to massive incompetence.
Great place to be when the great CME hits the planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection
#4: Exactly. They probably hired some company to build an expensive anechoic chamber, but they didn’t test to see if the chamber really worked.
As others have said: FAIL.
The iPad has reception problems too… with the WiFi.
“Apple engineer Ruben Caballero, who was the subject of a Bloomberg report yesterday claiming that he had warned Apple CEO Steve Jobs early in the iPhone 4 design process that the antenna design could cause reception problems, a claim Jobs today called a “crock” and “total bullshit”.”
“Hey, boss, the new design has a major flaw that will cause serious reception issues.”
“Shut the fuck up and go away, I’m still counting the cash from those idiots who bought the iPad.”
The facility is impressive. Perhaps other phone makers will show theirs now. Apple seems to be interested in some transparency and disclosure.
A few things that need to happen now:
1. Restore field test mode access. We cannot keep comparing bars with other phones. We need the granularity of actual dBm values. Apple’s videos comparing with other phones do not do engineering justice to their $100M testing facility.
2. Show the antenna test pattern of the iPhone 4 antenna. I’m yet to see one for any mobile phone, but you can see them for just about any other antenna. I expect this will be considered proprietary. It should not. The gains of these antennas are not higher than 1-3 dB at most, and their patterns are likely near omnidirectional in one plane. What’s the big deal? Just show us. Use your anechoic chambers to show us some real engineering results, not crude videos of bar graph changes.
3. Standardize the “bar vs dBm formula”, including time averaging interval, used on ALL new mobiles by mid-2011. This is easy to do, as it is an algorithm in software, mapping a measured value range to a bar graph. Apple modified theirs in 2 weeks. If this is not done, any comparisons between dissimilar methods are meaningless. The FCC could spend more useful time getting agreement on this matter.
4. Modify the iPhone 4 design to insulate the antenna inside the case, basically back to embedding it in the case structure. Use a transparent insulating material if the metal look is that important aesthetically. This may be better than inside 1-2mm of plastic, like the rest of the pack.
The best facilities, equipment, and personnel won’t matter if management doesn’t listen !!!
And yet they couldn’t find that flaw which means that facility has two distinct features:
1.- The tester was a complete fanboy and was busy stuffing his anus with the iPhone4 and thus couldn’t care at all about the phone’s antenna.
2.- Apple’s facilities are like their products: 75% looks and 25% functionality.
John F:
Why average received power over a time period? If people saw the instantanous power level on the graph, they would have figured out the “correct” way to hold and use the phone by themselves.
In fact: by indicating the direction to the strongest cell tower (via direct line of sight, or via most effective multipath direction) users could maximize the chances of maintaining a call in a marginal area. Such an App would be useful.
I frequently try to hold my G3 in a way that prevents loss of signal in a marginal area, but I’m only guessing what the phone needs me to do.
It is good to read the analysis of some experienced in these issues. Please post more thoughts if you can?
I also would like to point out that spending 100 million on a “world class” antenna testing facility, rather than spending 1 million on a “world class” antenna, is a fool’s errand.
Testing doesn’t substitute for good design, testing costs money while good design earns money.
There are companies that specialize in antenna design, including fractal antenna design.
I’m surprised that no one has noted that you do not test antennas in an anechoic chamber, you test them in a Faraday room. Anechoic chambers are for audio testing.
Oh, I almost forgot about this one
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple
#11
Averaging is a common method for measuring signal power. It can be done in two domains, time or distance. For example, every mobile network operator does drive tests with test phones connected to laptops running specialized software that can make automated test calls and run data sessions. RF signals are averaged about every 100m or every 5-10 seconds, in these engineering tests.
Reporting the instantaneous result would take up more computation, and this extra granularity is redundant. Also RF signals do vary continuously due to reflection, refraction, diffraction, obstruction, movement, etc. Even standing in one spot your signal is varying from some or all of these effects, but you don’t notice it. Without averaging, it is like looking at a clock telling time only in microseconds. It is still the correct time, but it is too fast an update to be practically useful, unless doing scientific work that requires it.
Engineering mode is accessible on most mobiles and Apple still needs to explain why this was apparently disabled on iPhone 4, or is no longer accessible with the code for 3G/3GS. Engineers use these codes to test all models of phones used on their networks. The information is sometimes cryptic and coded in hexadecimal, or another short hand. Most of the information would be above the comprehension of average consumers, so these codes, and this mode, are not widely known, or discussed.
Personally, I’d prefer dBm numbers in the left corner instead of bars, updating once every 5-10 seconds. Another useful number to include is the signal/noise ratio (or C/I in CDMA) telling you how much radio interference is in your calling environment.
When you make or receive a call, these two numbers would give a good indication if you may have a successful call. But, these two favorable factors don’t guarantee success. If you are in motion, you must have another tower to hand-off to, and it must have capacity to accept you, or your call will drop. There are so many more variables.
If you are at the park for a large concert competing with 10,000 other people for maybe 500 available circuits (or equivalent in data capacity), your call/data attempt may be blocked/slowed due to heavy usage, as everyone wants to call/text a friend, or upload a live “here I am” photo or video to Facebook. At heavily populated events, or during emergency situations, there is almost always more peak demand than engineered capacity. If the event occurs regularly, and is expected, carriers may engineer temporary or permanent increased capacity, using many indoor microcells, e.g. for sports stadiums, large conference centers, etc. But, again, I digress.
Here is a link (pdf) to some codes for the most common phones around.
# 10 Angel H. Wong said, “The tester was a complete fanboy and was busy stuffing his anus with the iPhone4…”
Actually, Angel, I have it on good authority that holding the phone with one’s anal sphincter actually reduces reception. On the good side, hardly anyone asks to borrow your phone…
#15. @Animby. Trying that.
#16 sargasso_c :
Let us know how it “comes out.”
#8 Are you gonna keep macfanboy trolling here? mac failed, deal with it!