Yesterday was the Apple press conference to address the world about the iPhone 4 antenna issues. They didn’t really apologize for the issue but rather provided some information about why it’s happening. Their fix is to give out free bumpers if you are having issues and issue a refund if you already bought one. Since they can’t provide enough bumper cases they will allow you to choose from some third party cases as well.

They really wanted to stress that the iPhone 4 isn’t the only phone that has these sorts of issues. They talked about other phones and how if you hold them a certain way they will drop in signal. They even have a page setup at Apple that shows videos of other phones suffering similar antenna issues. They even provided information on their 100 million dollar testing lab.

While the information they provided is correct, it still leaves the customer without a true fix. You’re just covering up the problem. Unlike all the other phones, the iPhone 4 is worse because you can trigger it with a single finger. Even though they said it can’t be fixed with software I still think it can be. Now I don’t have advance knowledge of antenna design so this is just me thinking, having a little hope. Once you bridge the gab and connect the two antennas with your finger you are more than doubling the surface area of the antenna. The power sent to the antenna was only designed for the original surface area. By increasing the power to the antenna to compensate the bigger antenna should restore reception. If you monitor power going to wifi, and cell antennas you should be able to safely increase/decrease it without exceeding FCC regulations. That’s of course if the hardware can safely send more power out.

It’s still nice that Apple addressed the issue and I’m still giving them a break on the issue. Something like this takes time for them to understand and come up with possible solutions. The worse thing you could do is promise a hardware fix without proper testing. That’s why they gave themselves until September to either have an alternate plan or keep issuing bumpers.

You can watch the press event on Apple’s site

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