Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4

Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4: "We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see." More...
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We will have to see user reactions to this press release as well as independent laboratory tests on the new iPhone devices.  It appears that Apple is denying there is a substantive problem, just a signal strength indicator issue.  Why then does the iPhone bumper ad on seem to fix the problem if the problem is just an incorrect formula used to calculate the visible signal strength bars?  Does this explanation make sense to you?  Now what will they say, if anything, about iOS4's dramatic draining of batteries in newly upgraded iPod Touch devices?

John H. Armwood