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Apple admits to flaw in iPhone 4

Apple has sent a letter out to journalists admitting there is an issue in the iPhone 4’s reception, it’s in the calculations used to show the signal bars and not a fault in gaining reception.

The letter is now publically available on the Apple website for all to see which goes on to explain away the issue, where it’s actually down to the way the iPhone 4 works out the signal and then displays it – where there isn’t any more issues, apart from that one.

The official statement by Apple goes on to state - “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.”

Apple goes on to mention “To fix this, we are adopting (American mobile phone network) 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”

Apple will be issuing a free software update, within a few weeks that has this corrected ‘formula’ worked in. This quick-fix will also be made available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G – as it could appear this problem is inherent to the iOS 4.


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