iPhone 4 antenna issue: User error or design flaw?

From CNET News.com: After just a few days in customers' hands, the iPhone 4 has been demonstrated to show signal loss when gripped in a certain way. Apple is writing it off as easily fixable by altering the way it's held. But is it a problem with the way customers are holding it or a flaw in Apple's design?

The iPhone 4, which went on sale for the first time Thursday, has two antennas built very close to the metal band running around the exterior of the device. The one running on the left side of the phone is for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, the one on the right is for cellular reception. Steve Jobs said recently this design was intended to improve reception.

But by Wednesday night, complaints began popping up among users who received early delivery, that when the phone is gripped in a way that touches the left bottom area of the phone, reception degrades or disappears in some cases. In CNET's own testing we were able to replicate the problem in the iPhone 4 in some cases, though it appeared to vary by person, place, and device. Apple acknowledged the issue Thursday night.

"Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas," the company said in a statement. "This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases."

In many smartphones today, the antenna is built into the bottom of the phone. That's for two reasons: to meet FCC requirements regarding the specific absorption rate, or SAR (how much radiation is allowed to enter the human body), and because the extending antenna went out of style several years ago.

Smartphone makers are placing more constraints on themselves to make increasingly smaller phones with increasingly sophisticated features and design. They're trying to fit larger batteries and more powerful processors into smaller packages, along with flashy materials, and a specific aesthetic. And those companies, like Apple with its iPhone 4, have to begin making certain choices and prioritizing, noted Spencer Webb, the president of AntennaSys, an antenna design firm.

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