After getting called out for having an issue every cell phone has, Apple did a photo shoot of a testing facility that every other cell phone manufacturer also has and used it as marketing.
John Cage visits an anechoic chamber: 'Cage entered the chamber expecting to hear silence, but as he wrote later, he "heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation." Cage had gone to a place where he expected there to be no sound, and yet sound was nevertheless discernible. He stated "until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music."' - <a href="http://goo.gl/mFI5" rel="nofollow">http://goo.gl/mFI5</a>
The one thing they never talked about is the difference between the iPhone 4's external antenna (exposed) and the internal antennas in most phones.<p>Testing a various websites shows that while most phones drop signal, the iPhone 4's signal dropped significantly more because the antenna is exposed and your skin comes in direct contact with the antenna rather than just in close proximity.<p>With the bumper "fixing" the problem, wouldn't putting the antenna inside the case essentially create the same fix by putting non-conductive material between the user and the antenna?
Fascinating. To my non-radio-engineer eyes the patterns look like acoustic dampers—is it an illusion that they resemble the foam wall inserts in a recording studio, and these are actually composed of a different material to affect megahertz radio waves?<p>Furthermore, how are they <i>supposed</i> to affect those waves, and to what end?
This looks like something out of a James Bond movie villian's hideout - all it needs is a self-destruct sequence announced over the PA system by some lackey with a monotone voice who inexplicably sits through the entire process while paitiently waiting to be engulfed in flames by the resulting explosion.<p>Sorry, I've had a lot of caffeine today.
So, from a scientific point of view, the conclusion is: their model of the real world is wrong.<p>It wouldn't suprise me, I've never seen so many blue spikes in one place ;)
How rigid and tough are those spikes? If you fell off the walkway while walking out to the test platform in the first picture, would it likely cause serious injury to you, or would it just crush a bunch of spikes and get you in trouble with your boss?
My first reaction when I saw these pictures was "Holy crap! Apple went and built a danger room![1]"<p>I can't be the only person who had this thought.<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_Room" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_Room</a>
I was in one of the cell network provider's testing lab a few times. They also do things like RF testing before putting the device on sale, but their lab doesn't look any similar to that. They have a bunch of Faraday cages (think of labs with sheet metal walls) and lots of RF emulation equipment - phone's getting connected through the RF port on the back; RF emulators take care of simulating any bad RF conditions that you could possibly imagine. So, their labs don't look that fancy at all. Still they manage to have devices that could be held any way you want.
I don't see how this helps their situation. This just adds weight to the idea that they willfully ignored the problem and shipped the phone with full knowledge of the antenna problems.
Does anyone know what material is used in making those cone-like pokey things? My immediate guess would be that its some form of dense foam to damp waves; but what exactly are they?
Before clicking the link I was about to post a pedantic "please change to a headline that doesn't editorialize", but after a second of looking at the pictures...holy crap! That is (objectively) insanely cool! :)
I bet you the money in my pocket that this lab was <i>not</i> called "Antenna design and test lab" prior to the press conference; part of the brilliance in this deflection of attention is most certainly found it the naming itself of this awesome place.
Do the people with this problem have different physiological properties in their hands? Such as more conductivity..<p>No matter how I hold any of my iPhones, reported signal strength is the same.<p>Anyone else experiencing this?
How can they make such a massive investment in this type of thing and end up with such a big 'oops'? It must be heartbreaking for the antenna engineers.
Seeing a giant 10-story, foam-padded test facility doesn't exactly seem like real world use to me, but then again I know nothing about proper cell phone testing procedures.
-- Here's where Professor Steve sits down in his wheelchair and uses this helmet that amplifies his reality distortion abilities. We call it "Manzana".
The fact that Apple is giving free cases (<a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/apple-to-give-away-free-bumpers-to-iphone-4-users/" rel="nofollow">http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/apple-to-give-away-free-b...</a>) means that the iPhone antenna has a bad design.<p>So they spent million of $ to improve the antenna and forgot this little detail? Where are the testers?
Wait... what? The fact that they thoroughly tested it and <i>still</i> had as big a problem as they did is supposed to make us think they're more competent?
Wow...that is so impressive (not)
I have seen tons of these anechoic chambers used by antenna manufacturers...Apple and their amazing marketing gimmics...
This lab looks really cool....but the timing of this page being seeded makes me believe its little more than a PR stunt! :) kudos apple fr givin us the iphone 3g/3gs/4...but the antennae problem was just too embarrassing for u guys!
This is so silly. There's a feynman quote where he was talking about how at MIT they had this really fancy test facility, but it never produced any results, because the people running the tests were in another room an never saw anything happen.<p>Then at Princeton, where they were in the same room, the machine (which was much less fancy) produced much more information because people saw what was going on as it was running.<p>Seems to me that this could easily be something of the case. Fancy test facility with no grounding in anything.<p>Furthermore isn't it kinda more embarrassing when, instead of admitting there was a problem, they just say that the phone was tested. It seems to imply that the issue is intentional.