Been an Apple fan since 1987. With the iPhone 4 clusterfuck I'm rethinking this. The worst part is the no commo from Apple. So, I'm rethinking my iPhone 4. What I need is info on Droid vs. iPhone/iOS4. AT&T is soon to release the Samsung Captivate. I'm thinking maybe that's the way to go. Thoughts, opinions? Any info would be appreciated.
I have the original Droid. Love it. Keyboard makes it a bit big though. The Market has really improved. I'd say within a year it will be pretty comparable to the Apple Market. The new operating system, or 2.2 is coming out very soon and it will blow people away. I can't wait. That being said, I wouldn't go with the original Droid anymore. I'd probably want the Incredible.
About the antenna thing..... A lot of phones have that problem. Probably get fixed with a software update.
I'm not sure if it is possible to fix a hardware problem that isn't software controlled or caused with a software update. Or, if they do, it will probably cause massive battery drainage and/or increase broadcast strength. Better use a blue tooth, or brain cancer is a coming!
Tell me one phone that completely loses so much reception just by the way you hold it? I have held the Nexus One before, and you might lose a bar if you cover up the antenna, but its nothing serious. And I have tried to kill reception on my Droid, and can't. So the excuse 'well other phones do it too' is pretty stupid, IMO. I'm surprised Jobs didn't come out and say that too.
Even if you don't consider the iPhone 4 the best phone on the market the only other thing that can be put at the top is the iPhone 3GS. Apple has the 2 best phones without a doubt. I also like Blackberries. I just don't like the Droid. They are slow and choppy compared to the iPhone. At least the BB is smooth.
A lot if misinformation regarding the iP4 reception in this thread and others. The issue is a combination of two things: 1-Interference on the bottom left corner of the phone when holding it in left hand which doesn't necessarily mean dropped calls merely a change in the signal strength display bars which is remedied with an Apple Bumper case for $30. Since the metal band around the phone is the antennae the bumper cuts down on the interference. That all being said I have been using the phone a lot since the 24th and have had absolutely no dropped calls or reception problems. In fact the reception is better than all THREE previous generations of iPhones which I've owned. 2 - The second issue is the frequency of the signal which IS fixable with a software update due out this week. What the update addresses is the frequency rate of the antennae signal which at the moment is lower than optimum. The software update will increase the frequency rate thus lowering the intermittency issue. Hence the reason Steve Jobs (love or hate him, douche or not) has said it really is not an issue. If you want some real info on the issue, not uninformed crap from MS and Droid fanboys that you see on most news websites, there are quite a few good posts here once you filter out lame ass fanboys from both sides. http://forums.macrumors.com
There have been people who've shown on You Tube that Nokia, HTC Droid, and Nexus One 3g phones do it. Hell my LG phones does it sometimes. There are also plenty of iPhone users who hold the phone the same way and report absolutely no problems. Could be software, could be cell tower shit, could be just a batch of bad phones.
Interestingly enough is been reported and I don't know if it's true but hte reason Apple put the antenna in the lower corner is due to federal regulations to keep the antenna as far away as possible from the head. Yes I know holding the phone to your ear is still putting it next to your head but that's whats being reported. Would be funny if true.
I've tried to duplicate the signal drops that I've seen on You Tube and allthingsdigital.com and I cannot.
It's a really funny thing, no doubt. I have a friend who hates bluetooth devices and was teasing him about getting brain cancer. He didn't skip a beat and said "If I had to choose between brain cancer and testicular cancer, I'm saving my balls. No blue tooth for me." I guess he would carry his phone in his pocket.
None taken, I was talking about the huge amount of misinformation in the media right now. As an Apple user since the mid 80's I understand Apple products aren't for everyone and SJ can come off as an arrogant douche. To his credit though he has designed some pretty incredible computing devices that have changed the industry and many parallel industries. Apple users have been written off and hated on since the beginning when it really was a little company that made products for graphic designers, photographers and audio professionals. The only standard that I judge ALL Apple devices on are do they meet my needs and do they work when I need them to? The answer is yes for me. Apple products like any other product should be judged on merit not emotional fanboy ranting which unfortunately I see a LOT of lately on the websites I frequent both from new, obnoxious Apple fanboys AND mindless Apple haters who have never even owned an Apple product.
Makes me wonder if you've ever seriously played around with a Droid. Granted, they aren't as smooth as the iPhone, at least until you install the after-market add-on called LauncherPro. From there its the same thing as the iPhone in terms of smoothness. Oh, and did I mention that 2.2 is coming out, and the speed alone is going to blow everything else out of the water?
Yes, all those phones have had small issues with the reception being lost. But nothing compared to what the new iPhone had. There is a reason Apple is scrambling to fix it. Because its a real problem, and not something some Droid fanboi dreamed up. Could be anything, I know, but whatever it is....Apple screwed the pooch.
Pretty much. I don't have an issue with that, outside of more and more issues coming out. Clicky That being said, I think the response from Jobs made it 10x worse. Barring a recall of course.
So Anandtech's got a good writeup of the antenna problems. TLDR version - 1. Yes, the attenuation is real, and worse than everything else out there, a full 24.6 dB (19.8 if you don't cup it too tightly). 2. Pretty much any case that prevents you from bridging the antennae reduces attenuation to levels comparable with the Nexus One no matter how tightly you hold it. 3. The bars represent a ludicrously low dynamic range of signal strength - the first 4 are -113 to -91 dB, and then the 5th is -91 to -51 dB. Since this scale is logarithmic, you can see just how much range is represented with one bar. This accounts for the inability of some people (barring particularly dry hands) to reproduce the issue - If you've got 5 bars, cupping the phone tightly might either do nothing to your bars, or drop it all the way down to 1 or 0 bars. 4 bars or less, it will very likely kill your signal entirely. 4. The radio tuner is much better than the one on the 3GS - calls at -113 dB are still coming through well, and not dropping regularly as they would on the 3GS. TLDR version of the above - buy any case that prevents your sweaty hands from bridging the gap between antennae, and you won't have problems.
What I can't stand is the lack of a good option for data plans with any carrier. I want unlimited data + tethering for my iphone. As far as I'm concerned I'm carrying around a device that is capable of providing my access to a network I'm paying for and I shouldn't be restricted. I checked my data usage and I am coming in at about 1.8gb per month. So in theory I could live with their 2gb plan except I know for sure my usage is going to go up if I can tether. I would actually be willing to pay the unreasonable tethering charge of $20 per month if AT&T would offer 3gb per month of data as a plan, they could even keep it at the current level I'm paying of $30 a month for unlimited. They really haven't left me with a good option. Another issue I've got is how about offering rollover data like they offer rollover minutes? If I'm paying for those 2gb I should get them without an expiration date. That would make this plan work for me too. I use 1.8 most of the time but if I have a month where I use 2.6 then it can draw from the pool of rollover data. I looked into just getting a mobile broadband card but the options there are worse than the phone options. First off I have to buy some kind of a card with most of them or commit to a 2 year plan. There is no way I'm committing to a 2 year plan because I think most of the bullshit offers for data out there now will be gone in 2 years and we'll probably have exactly what I'm asking for. I'm not going to pay $35-40 for 200mb or $60 for 2gb, if I do that I may as well just pay the overages on my AT&T plan because I seriously doubt they average $35-60 per month. Virgin Mobile offers "pay as you go" data plans but they have time limits. If I could just buy 1 gb of data at a time with no expiration I would do it tomorrow, even if I had to pay $150 for the wireless card. It's crap like this that makes me wish I lived in Europe.
I haven't really looked into it because I haven't had a need just yet. But, back when I used Windows Mobile phones, I used this software. It allowed me to teather my phone to my computer and use it as a modem without going through any of the carrier's bullshit. There's this for the Blackberry and Android. One of my past GF's used it on her Blackberry for over a year and our carrier never said a word. There may be something similar either out there, or coming out, for the iPhone. But, I don't know about it.
Yes, I read this earlier. Nice write up. Bottom line, is my iPhone 4 should come next week. I'll try it and see how it goes. I ordered a case so that should help. If it works great, if not it goes back and I wait for the Captivate. Thanks for the input.
Yeah, I don't get that either. If you pay for the data, why can't you tether? You use too much data, you get charged. If you got unlimited, then it really should be unlimited. As in you should be able to use as much data as you want. Not 5gigs, and then they shut you down. But they called it unlimited to begin with.
The reason is, of course, that they want you to purchase a different card for that. One thing I like about tmobile is that on bberries, they allow tethering for free.
Got my iPhone 4 today. So far everything is great. It's in a case so no reception problems. Upgrading took only a few minutes. Screen and speed are great. No other issues as of yet.
