Our Theory Regarding The Reported Signal Failure on The iPhone 4

Over the past few days, users have been receiving their iPhone 4 handsets, some earlier than stated and others today (official release day). Since then there have been reports of two main issues affecting some of these handsets, yellow discolouring on the retina display and loss of signal when holding the iPhone 4 in a specific way. I am going to give our opinion on one of these issues, the signal loss.

As I said, some users have been reporting call drops and total signal failure, and almost all of them have described the same thing. When holding the iPhone 4 in the left hand, the palm and extended thumb makes a solid connection between the top and bottom sections of the steel band used as the antennae. When held in this way the signal drops to “No Service” within seconds. This is demonstrated in the video below from Insanely Great Mac;

Some users have also reported this issue seems to be resolved when using a case with the iPhone 4, more specifically the Bumper case released by Apple.

Anyone smell a rat yet? No? Ok I’ll continue.

Just a few minutes ago I was on the phone with Ben (d900man) discussing the issue and it occurred to us that maybe there is something in this. Apple has never released a case for an iPhone before so why start now?

Maybe this issue is a known issue and, in an attempt to cover it up (or at least provide a convenient solution), Apple released a case that covers only the steel band around the edge, the strongest part of the phone, which just seems odd and too coincidental to us.

Why leave all the vulnerable glass areas open and unprotected?

Let us know your thoughts on this theory in the comments below.

**UPDATE**

Apparently a user over at Macrumors emailed Steve Jobs regarding the signal loss issue found with the iPhone 4. The email reads like this;

Samcraig: What’s going to be done about the signal dropping issue. Is it software or hardware?

Steve Jobs: Non issue. Just avoid holding it in that way.

We think that this is a disgraceful response to an issue affecting a lot of users, some of which have forked out huge amounts of money for the iPhone 4!

What do you think?