Re: iPhone 4 - Loses Reception When You Touch the Side (Who says Apple products are "Better Quality"?)
 

Say huh!? How are they putting iOS 3 on an iPhone 4!? BootROM wouldn't match, you'd think.

Forget making excuses. They just didn't test it. They might be able to do something, but I'd rather think that it'll be fixed via design changes than 3d parties saying it's a driver issue.

Hmm. I think Texrat said it best when the bumpers were an admission of an existing design flaw perhaps.

Re: iPhone 4 - Loses Reception When You Touch the Side (Who says Apple products are "Better Quality"?)
 

This isn't surprising. Any antenna doesn't like foreign conductors. I can get my N900 to lose bars if I really cup it in the area of the GSM antenna. Honestly, I just tried it. If you cup an iPhone really hard, it will lose reception. The thing is, on the iPhone 4 it's super easy. No cupping needed. There's a video showing that even a finger touch is enough. Usually when you hold a phone, you aren't blocking it enough to influence the signal. But with the iPhone 4 you can do it easily just by touching it the wrong way.

Re: iPhone 4 - Loses Reception When You Touch the Side (Who says Apple products are "Better Quality"?)
 

One other possibility is that the actual antenna actually works well; but the signal meter is designed/implemented poorly. It doesn't measure the actual rx/tx performance of the antenna, thus the skewed reading when you touch parts of the body (some reports mentioned the call goes on without issue with zero signal bar).

Re: iPhone 4 - Loses Reception When You Touch the Side (Who says Apple products are "Better Quality"?)
 

Actually Nokia/Google are more like Microsoft was with PC's. Apple is being Apple (single vendor, tight hardware/software integration, do it our way).

Re: iPhone 4 - Loses Reception When You Touch the Side (Who says Apple products are "Better Quality"?)
 

The communication is all digital. Having lower bars doesn't mean you immediately sense degradation in the quality. Eventually it will start "dropping bits" and lagging and crackling. There is a video showing complete call drop when held with the skin connecting the antennas.

Regarding the possible signal meter software bug, think of it this way - the device can't sense when it's being touched, and obviously some effect is triggering the change in bars. There is no explanation other than a change in reception/transmission. Maybe there's a bug that exaggerates the loss of reception, but something is definitely happening. Also, lower reception means higher transmission power, means less battery life and more warming up your head. It can't be good.

Re: iPhone 4 - Loses Reception When You Touch the Side (Who says Apple products are "Better Quality"?)
 

I really do hope it is just a software issue for apples sake and all the people about to buy one, but from the various videos I have seen it does seem like there is definitely a possibility to disrupt the reception on the iphone 4 to the point of dropping connection with even a very accurately placed finger.

I guess we will see

Re: iPhone 4 - Loses Reception When You Touch the Side (Who says Apple products are "Better Quality"?)
 

Worst case, Apple starts dropping a free bumper into every iPhone 4 box and has existing owners drop by genius bars or enter serial numbers online to receive free ones. The bumpers probably cost Apple a buck or less, so it won't kill them.

People will still buy the other bumper colors even, just to differentiate themselves from the boring, free one everyone has.

Nintendo having to offer free replacement wrist straps for early Wii Remotes didn't hurt that system any.

Re: iPhone 4 - Loses Reception When You Touch the Side (Who says Apple products are "Better Quality"?)
 

In the end, it's just an artificial bug that will be fixed via a small downloadable patch. When asked about the feature, Jobs commented: "I just want the users to experience an awesome wave of relief on my command."

(jk)

Re: iPhone 4 - Loses Reception When You Touch the Side (Who says Apple products are "Better Quality"?)
 

Be fair people! The testers were likely running simultaneous fart and burp apps to test multitasking abilities and didn't notice this reception issue. It's not like you'd use a phone for calling people. :D

All joking aside...

It sounds like the cover/secrecy theory would explain this oversight. But holy cow! Antenna integration has got to be a cornerstone in any wireless device's design.

Re: iPhone 4 - Loses Reception When You Touch the Side (Who says Apple products are "Better Quality"?)
 

I guess the other $28.99 is the fruit tax we have been hearing about :)