Apple has finally admitted to problems with their new iPhone 4 as well as past iPhones which resulted in the iPhone giving out a false reading of the wireless signal strength when connected to a carrier network like Telstra, Optus or Vodafone.
In an open letter to iPhone 4 owners Apple said that it had been using an incorrect method to determine the number of signal bars displayed on its devices. In several instances, iPhones mistakenly show better cellular reception than exists, the company said.
“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,” the company wrote. Apple said the problem has been present since the original iPhone.
The Wall Street Journal said that the investigation into the issue was touched off by user dissatisfaction over the iPhone 4’s antenna. Adding that “gripping almost any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars,” Apple said iPhone 4 users appeared to be seeing a bigger drop than normal in antenna reception when they held their phones in a certain way because they were in low-reception areas to begin with. Apple said it would make a software update available to fix the bar display problem for the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G within a few weeks.
