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It would help to distinguish between (1) antenna detuning because of bridging between the antennas and (2) attenuation because of having a lump of human body ne
by gjm11 16y ago
It would help to distinguish between (1) antenna detuning because of bridging between the antennas and (2) attenuation because of having a lump of human body next to the antenna. I don't know that that would be directly useful in itself, but it would be interesting. Obvious further experiments: what happens when you add some impedance (resistive and/or capacitive) to the connection between the antennas? what happens if you put a conductive thing, broadly similar to a human hand but better controlled, in various places near the antenna? Etc.
The results of doing a bunch of measurements like this could make it much easier to answer questions like: What is it about your hand or your grip or whatever that determines how much you impair reception on your iPhone? How much of the problem would go away if you put various things (kapton tape, rubber bumper, etc.) between the antenna and your hand?
Just playing around with actual human hands can give some information of that sort, and if you're only going to do a small amount of investigation you probably get more information that way. But for a deeper understanding of what's going on, you'd want to be more scientific and try harder to decouple different failure mechanisms.
(Of course talk is cheap. I haven't done any of that. Not least because I happen not to have an iPhone.)
- dieterrams 16y ago> It would help to distinguish between (1) antenna detuning because of bridging between the antennas and (2) attenuation because of having a lump of human body next to the antenna. It is, without doubt, #1. Any confusion stems from the variety of ways in which it can fail to happen (variable conductivity of people, for one), or fail to have dramatic results (being in an area with strong signal). If you're sufficiently conductive, there's a good chance you can reproduce the problem by walking into an Apple store and trying your hand. That's what I did, and there was a dramatic difference between bridging both antennas with just an inch of finger vs covering the left antenna with as much palm as possible. That wiped out any remaining skepticism I might have had.
- gjm11 16y agoAccording to Anandtech's investigations -- http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2 -- both effects are real. #1 is the one that Apple seem to have screwed up on, and that might be fixable (to some extent at least) by putting something over some or all of the exposed metal of the antenna. #2 is the one that applies to other phones about as much as to the iPhone 4. Both will cause signal loss when you hold the phone, relative to sitting it on a table or whatever.
- dieterrams 16y agoRight, I wasn't denying #2. I'm just saying there can be no doubt that #1 is real, and more severe by far under the right conditions.