3 ms·

Daring Fireball: Antennagate Bottom Line

29 points by fogus 16y ago

kenthorvath 16y ago
John has been arguing very petulantly lately that all/most smart phones enjoy the same signal attenuation that the iPhone 4 does. Whether true or not, the location of the band is particularly ill conceived, as it is touched by holding it in nearly any comfortable position, even with the ring finger when held in the right hand and in the left as demonstrated by Jobs himself. The fact that the antenna is externally conductive is the real issue here, as it has been demonstrated that antenna performance is significantly improved by placing a piece of duct tape or other insulating material over the band gap. It is very clearly, then, a poor design to not have insulated the antenna in a non-conductive coating. This is not a logic test that anyone should fail. Does the antenna have a conductivity issue when held in the hand? If yes, can the conductivity issue be resolved with minimal impact on design thereby improving performance? If yes, did Apple implement such a design? If no, isn't Apple guilty of releasing a product with an inherent design flaw? I think the answer is a resounding yes. I also think other smart phones do not factor into the discussion in a meaningful way.
- wyclif 16y ago
  Here's my problem with Apple in a nutshell: when things are going swimmingly for them design-wise, iPhones are not smartphones. But when things go awry, iPhones are just smartphones, you see? All smartphones have these attenuation issues, so stop harshing us here in Cupertino, mkay?
  - jsz0 16y ago
    It might be just a tiny bit unreasonable to expect companies not to do positive advertising/PR for their products.
- sans-serif 16y ago
  Gruber regularly scouts HN for feedbacks so let's hope he answers this one. He's been too much in a rush to defend Apple lately and this is a gaping flaw in his chain of reasonings. His "different but not worse [on average]" line makes no sense when (based on various pieces he link to from his blog) 1) it's very easy (as with other phones) to hit the spot accidentally and 2) the worst-case attenuation is significantly worse than those of other phones. You don't need a degree in statistics to see that something doesn't add up.
  - kenthorvath 16y ago
    Well, whether he responds to this thread or not, he has already made a public statement, which seemingly contradicts his other comments on the matter: "I don’t know if this signal-degradation-in-left-hand thing is really a widespread problem or not yet, but it’s not reasonable to tell people not to hold the phone this way." - John Gruber (Daring Fireball)
- jsz0 16y ago
  I doubt they could have designed, tested and produced this type of fix in 22 days. People calling for a recall are kind of arguing against their own logic. They want Apple to rush out a design change and apparently skip all the testing (durability, RF considerations) while claiming the lack of testing caused the original problem. I would guess durability is a bigger concern than RF. The outer edge of the phone gets the most abuse. A thin non-conductive coating could chip or wear in an unpleasant way. The bumper case is a good enough solution for now. The only other alternative is to stop selling the iPhone for 2-3 months or however long it takes to make a design change and produce enough units to do a recall. That's going to upset a lot more people than an extra dropped call here and there I bet.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - moe 16y ago
    That's going to upset a lot more people than an extra dropped call here and there I bet. Only shareholders, not users.
    - amatheus 16y ago
      Well, I always hear there are iPhone shortages, so it would annoy users too. I'm still waiting for the iPhone 4 to come to Brazil and would be VERY annoyed if there was a new delay on top of the already long lag between the iPhone 4 launch in the US and in the Brazil.
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  isn't Apple guilty of releasing a product with an inherent design flaw? Yes. Many times. Just like almost every other engineer, including one hundred percent of those who practice agile methods and release minimum viable products. Also: Jimmy Carter was guilty of adultery in his heart. I'm struck by the fact that Apple criticism has acquired this theological tone. It's like Catholics debating the nature of original sin. Were the engineers born in perdition, or did they fall from grace? Can they be redeemed by faith alone, or must they perform good works, and how many additional Hail Marys are necessary? The bottom line is that this particular issue, whatever its Platonic form, is apparently not serious enough to get me off the iPhone waiting list. I am getting bored with waiting. Return your phones, people! The other bottom line is that mobile phone discussions used to occasionally stray to other companies besides Apple, other products besides iPhone and other people besides Steve Jobs. Now, apparently, there is nothing better to do but debate the color of Steve's invisible halo. Is this a signifier of the state of the industry right now? At some point, Motorola will release an exploding phone just to get a share of all the press.
  - kenthorvath 16y ago
    not serious enough to get me off the iPhone waiting list. So, you don't actually own an iPhone 4, and haven't suffered with this issue, then? I hope your experience will be much better than mine. Truly.
    - towndrunk 16y ago
      Did you return yours?
      - kenthorvath 16y ago
        Would that change the validity of either (a) my initial argument that Apple made an error, or (b) my correct observation that somebody was commenting on an issue with which he or she may not have any first-hand experience? Notice I never argued that Apple's error was severe enough that the only rational recourse was to return the phone itself. So, perhaps I did; perhaps I didn't. It's just not relevant.
- ubernostrum 16y ago
  If no, isn't Apple guilty of releasing a product with an inherent design flaw? Except this is entirely the wrong question to ask. More appropriate from an engineering perspective would be: is this an acceptable trade-off? Is there an attenuation issue? Yes. Does it appear, from independent testing, that the iPhone 4's antenna is nonetheless much more sensitive than previous models and much better at holding onto calls with low signal? Yes. These are the two sides of the trade-off, and the only useful question we can ask is whether this trade-off is acceptable. Because, ultimately, engineering is all about trade-offs. You give up this, you get that, and you aim to make the best trades you can.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
zzleeper 16y ago
Can you stop posting his posts every 10 seconds? I know this is a rant and you guys don't like them (reddit is for that) but really, all this drama is getting on my nerves (and kenthorvath is right about jgruber)
moultano 16y ago
Does anyone honestly care? I'd just downvote and shut up about it if that option were available to me, but it isn't.
wwortiz 16y ago
Something I want to address regarding return rates and complaint rates that I see on this all the time. Perhaps return rates are so low because people like the phone and do not want a different smartphone enough that the antenna issues aren't a big enough deal to warrant returning it. Many xboxes red ring of death and no one returns them they just get a replacement so it can rrod again I know my brother has returned about 5 or 6 xboxes now. Most people don't return products because they don't do exactly what they want people tend to return faulty products, and only when those faulty products are so bad that it is better not having one. And regarding the support number of 0.55 percent, not everyone calls support for simple things like a dropped call or no reception, add to that the news coverage where even local news stations are reporting the antenna issues and apple providing cases for free less people are probably willing to call for a known issue.
MWinther 16y ago
I, for one, thought this was a good summary of how the Apple camp looks at the issue right now, whether you agree with that interpretation or not.
jared314 16y ago
Sounds like they didn't factor in the south-paw iphone user demographic.
- MrFoof 16y ago
  It's far simpler than that. When you are not in contact with the antenna bridge, signal quality and throughput is much higher than any other iPhone. By a large margin. When you come in contact with the antenna bridge, signal quality degrades considerably. I'm sure this was discussed at length by many engineers, on many occasions. They did a risk-benefit analysis, and concluded that the pros would outweigh the cons. They probably also weighed the option of trying to engineer something that allows them to have their cake and eat it too, but the need to have something to demo at a keynote, and phones ready for manufacturing didn't make it possible this iteration. ----- I go through this all the time. "Well, we can take this naive approach. It works. But processing time is O(log n). I think we could take a slick approach and reduce it to a worst case of 2n, but those worst cases are edge cases. Even without this approach our processing time is almost always n anyways. It'll add 10-20% to the development timeline to handle these edge cases gracefully." The answer always ends up being not to waste your time designing for edge cases that happen in specific (and in our case, controlled and planned) circumstances.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
Geee 16y ago
It's an issue but not a big deal, just put the case on. On the positive side, at least they got something to show next June.
Tycho 16y ago
He raises an interesting point about the opportunity cost of giving away these cases when they would have been selling loads of them. Remember people said Apple were undamaged by the iPhone 4 leak, that they lost no competitive advantage? Well nobody thought about the case market, which until then only Apple had the necessary information to enter. Must have cut into their head-start by a few million...
jrockway 16y ago
FWIW, my Evo 4G doesn't suffer any degradation of download speed when I sandwich the phone directly between two people. So maybe it's normal for iPhones to drop calls when you touch them, but it's certainly not the case for every phone. (I was going to guess that it's GSM vs. CDMA issue, but of course, AT&T's 3G network is CDMA.)
- starkfist 16y ago
  It was important for the EVO engineers to make sure the signal didn't degrade because you've only got about 2 hours to work with when using that device.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    Yeah, it does only last two hours when I try to use it as an airport beacon.
huhtenberg 16y ago
Let's say BMW releases a brand new model, revolutionary. With a parking camera at front :) But the car horn button has this odd, innovative design whereby it can sometimes be hit accidentally. Is this a significant problem? No. Do all cars have this problem? You bet. Not this exact problem, but still. Is this a major screw up on part of a company that prides itself on producing high-end polished cars? Totally. Do their claims that it's not a big deal affect their image? Absolutely.
GavinB 16y ago
It’s telling that the criticism surrounding this issue has shifted, quickly, from speculation about a technical defect in the iPhone 4 hardware to criticism over the tone of Apple’s response to it. The conversation shifted because the speculation was proven to be correct, as stated in the opening paragraph of the piece.
theBobMcCormick 16y ago
I think is relevant here: http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2010/7/20/hard-numbers-apple-has-400x-higher-complaint-rate-than-htc.aspx http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2010/7/20/hard-numbers-...
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
Why does no-one find it strange that Apple's antenna testing lab was "secret"? According to another article they were called "black labs" and no-one knew what was going on within them. Now maybe this is just typical Apple PR nonsense to make something as humdrum as product testing sound sexy but if not then it's mind boggling. New employee: "So where do we test the iPhones radios then?", "We don't", "Oh, okay, so what does the antenna engineer I met at breakfast do in that building over there all day", "Nothing". Having your system running on intel chips, I can see why that would be kept secret. Keeping your new models secret before launch, fine. Secret anntenna testing for what must be the most famous phone in the world, I don't get. Where is the benefit?

29 points by fogus 16y ago

John has been arguing very petulantly lately that all/most smart phones enjoy the same signal attenuation that the iPhone 4 does. Whether true or not, the location of the band is particularly ill conceived, as it is touched by holding it in nearly any comfortable position, even with the ring finger when held in the right hand and in the left as demonstrated by Jobs himself. The fact that the antenna is externally conductive is the real issue here, as it has been demonstrated that antenna performance is significantly improved by placing a piece of duct tape or other insulating material over the band gap. It is very clearly, then, a poor design to not have insulated the antenna in a non-conductive coating. This is not a logic test that anyone should fail. Does the antenna have a conductivity issue when held in the hand? If yes, can the conductivity issue be resolved with minimal impact on design thereby improving performance? If yes, did Apple implement such a design? If no, isn't Apple guilty of releasing a product with an inherent design flaw? I think the answer is a resounding yes. I also think other smart phones do not factor into the discussion in a meaningful way.

wyclif 16y ago
Here's my problem with Apple in a nutshell: when things are going swimmingly for them design-wise, iPhones are not smartphones. But when things go awry, iPhones are just smartphones, you see? All smartphones have these attenuation issues, so stop harshing us here in Cupertino, mkay?
- jsz0 16y ago
  It might be just a tiny bit unreasonable to expect companies not to do positive advertising/PR for their products.
sans-serif 16y ago
Gruber regularly scouts HN for feedbacks so let's hope he answers this one. He's been too much in a rush to defend Apple lately and this is a gaping flaw in his chain of reasonings. His "different but not worse [on average]" line makes no sense when (based on various pieces he link to from his blog) 1) it's very easy (as with other phones) to hit the spot accidentally and 2) the worst-case attenuation is significantly worse than those of other phones. You don't need a degree in statistics to see that something doesn't add up.
- kenthorvath 16y ago
  Well, whether he responds to this thread or not, he has already made a public statement, which seemingly contradicts his other comments on the matter: "I don’t know if this signal-degradation-in-left-hand thing is really a widespread problem or not yet, but it’s not reasonable to tell people not to hold the phone this way." - John Gruber (Daring Fireball)
jsz0 16y ago
I doubt they could have designed, tested and produced this type of fix in 22 days. People calling for a recall are kind of arguing against their own logic. They want Apple to rush out a design change and apparently skip all the testing (durability, RF considerations) while claiming the lack of testing caused the original problem. I would guess durability is a bigger concern than RF. The outer edge of the phone gets the most abuse. A thin non-conductive coating could chip or wear in an unpleasant way. The bumper case is a good enough solution for now. The only other alternative is to stop selling the iPhone for 2-3 months or however long it takes to make a design change and produce enough units to do a recall. That's going to upset a lot more people than an extra dropped call here and there I bet.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- moe 16y ago
  That's going to upset a lot more people than an extra dropped call here and there I bet. Only shareholders, not users.
  - amatheus 16y ago
    Well, I always hear there are iPhone shortages, so it would annoy users too. I'm still waiting for the iPhone 4 to come to Brazil and would be VERY annoyed if there was a new delay on top of the already long lag between the iPhone 4 launch in the US and in the Brazil.
mechanical_fish 16y ago
isn't Apple guilty of releasing a product with an inherent design flaw? Yes. Many times. Just like almost every other engineer, including one hundred percent of those who practice agile methods and release minimum viable products. Also: Jimmy Carter was guilty of adultery in his heart. I'm struck by the fact that Apple criticism has acquired this theological tone. It's like Catholics debating the nature of original sin. Were the engineers born in perdition, or did they fall from grace? Can they be redeemed by faith alone, or must they perform good works, and how many additional Hail Marys are necessary? The bottom line is that this particular issue, whatever its Platonic form, is apparently not serious enough to get me off the iPhone waiting list. I am getting bored with waiting. Return your phones, people! The other bottom line is that mobile phone discussions used to occasionally stray to other companies besides Apple, other products besides iPhone and other people besides Steve Jobs. Now, apparently, there is nothing better to do but debate the color of Steve's invisible halo. Is this a signifier of the state of the industry right now? At some point, Motorola will release an exploding phone just to get a share of all the press.
- kenthorvath 16y ago
  not serious enough to get me off the iPhone waiting list. So, you don't actually own an iPhone 4, and haven't suffered with this issue, then? I hope your experience will be much better than mine. Truly.
  - towndrunk 16y ago
    Did you return yours?
    - kenthorvath 16y ago
      Would that change the validity of either (a) my initial argument that Apple made an error, or (b) my correct observation that somebody was commenting on an issue with which he or she may not have any first-hand experience? Notice I never argued that Apple's error was severe enough that the only rational recourse was to return the phone itself. So, perhaps I did; perhaps I didn't. It's just not relevant.
ubernostrum 16y ago
If no, isn't Apple guilty of releasing a product with an inherent design flaw? Except this is entirely the wrong question to ask. More appropriate from an engineering perspective would be: is this an acceptable trade-off? Is there an attenuation issue? Yes. Does it appear, from independent testing, that the iPhone 4's antenna is nonetheless much more sensitive than previous models and much better at holding onto calls with low signal? Yes. These are the two sides of the trade-off, and the only useful question we can ask is whether this trade-off is acceptable. Because, ultimately, engineering is all about trade-offs. You give up this, you get that, and you aim to make the best trades you can.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

zzleeper 16y ago

Can you stop posting his posts every 10 seconds? I know this is a rant and you guys don't like them (reddit is for that) but really, all this drama is getting on my nerves (and kenthorvath is right about jgruber)

moultano 16y ago

Does anyone honestly care? I'd just downvote and shut up about it if that option were available to me, but it isn't.

wwortiz 16y ago

Something I want to address regarding return rates and complaint rates that I see on this all the time. Perhaps return rates are so low because people like the phone and do not want a different smartphone enough that the antenna issues aren't a big enough deal to warrant returning it. Many xboxes red ring of death and no one returns them they just get a replacement so it can rrod again I know my brother has returned about 5 or 6 xboxes now. Most people don't return products because they don't do exactly what they want people tend to return faulty products, and only when those faulty products are so bad that it is better not having one. And regarding the support number of 0.55 percent, not everyone calls support for simple things like a dropped call or no reception, add to that the news coverage where even local news stations are reporting the antenna issues and apple providing cases for free less people are probably willing to call for a known issue.

MWinther 16y ago

I, for one, thought this was a good summary of how the Apple camp looks at the issue right now, whether you agree with that interpretation or not.

jared314 16y ago

Sounds like they didn't factor in the south-paw iphone user demographic.

MrFoof 16y ago
It's far simpler than that. When you are not in contact with the antenna bridge, signal quality and throughput is much higher than any other iPhone. By a large margin. When you come in contact with the antenna bridge, signal quality degrades considerably. I'm sure this was discussed at length by many engineers, on many occasions. They did a risk-benefit analysis, and concluded that the pros would outweigh the cons. They probably also weighed the option of trying to engineer something that allows them to have their cake and eat it too, but the need to have something to demo at a keynote, and phones ready for manufacturing didn't make it possible this iteration. ----- I go through this all the time. "Well, we can take this naive approach. It works. But processing time is O(log n). I think we could take a slick approach and reduce it to a worst case of 2n, but those worst cases are edge cases. Even without this approach our processing time is almost always n anyways. It'll add 10-20% to the development timeline to handle these edge cases gracefully." The answer always ends up being not to waste your time designing for edge cases that happen in specific (and in our case, controlled and planned) circumstances.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

Geee 16y ago

It's an issue but not a big deal, just put the case on. On the positive side, at least they got something to show next June.

Tycho 16y ago

He raises an interesting point about the opportunity cost of giving away these cases when they would have been selling loads of them. Remember people said Apple were undamaged by the iPhone 4 leak, that they lost no competitive advantage? Well nobody thought about the case market, which until then only Apple had the necessary information to enter. Must have cut into their head-start by a few million...

jrockway 16y ago

FWIW, my Evo 4G doesn't suffer any degradation of download speed when I sandwich the phone directly between two people. So maybe it's normal for iPhones to drop calls when you touch them, but it's certainly not the case for every phone. (I was going to guess that it's GSM vs. CDMA issue, but of course, AT&T's 3G network is CDMA.)

starkfist 16y ago
It was important for the EVO engineers to make sure the signal didn't degrade because you've only got about 2 hours to work with when using that device.
- jrockway 16y ago
  Yeah, it does only last two hours when I try to use it as an airport beacon.

huhtenberg 16y ago

Let's say BMW releases a brand new model, revolutionary. With a parking camera at front :) But the car horn button has this odd, innovative design whereby it can sometimes be hit accidentally. Is this a significant problem? No. Do all cars have this problem? You bet. Not this exact problem, but still. Is this a major screw up on part of a company that prides itself on producing high-end polished cars? Totally. Do their claims that it's not a big deal affect their image? Absolutely.

GavinB 16y ago

It’s telling that the criticism surrounding this issue has shifted, quickly, from speculation about a technical defect in the iPhone 4 hardware to criticism over the tone of Apple’s response to it. The conversation shifted because the speculation was proven to be correct, as stated in the opening paragraph of the piece.

theBobMcCormick 16y ago

I think is relevant here: http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2010/7/20/hard-numbers-apple-has-400x-higher-complaint-rate-than-htc.aspx http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2010/7/20/hard-numbers-...

ZeroGravitas 16y ago

Why does no-one find it strange that Apple's antenna testing lab was "secret"? According to another article they were called "black labs" and no-one knew what was going on within them. Now maybe this is just typical Apple PR nonsense to make something as humdrum as product testing sound sexy but if not then it's mind boggling. New employee: "So where do we test the iPhones radios then?", "We don't", "Oh, okay, so what does the antenna engineer I met at breakfast do in that building over there all day", "Nothing". Having your system running on intel chips, I can see why that would be kept secret. Keeping your new models secret before launch, fine. Secret anntenna testing for what must be the most famous phone in the world, I don't get. Where is the benefit?