How You Hold Apple's iPhone 4 Affects Its Wireless Performance

Users of the new Apple iPhone 4 have complained about occasional problems with its wireless performance. Apple says this is caused by users touching this smartphone's external antenna.

The iPhone 4 has a new design in which the outer edge of the device is used as a collection of antennas. While in most cases this improves the phone's wireless performance, holding the unit in a certain way can greatly reduce it.

An Apple spokesperson said:

"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. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your Phone 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."

Overview of the Apple iPhone 4
Apple's fourth-generation smartphone is a significant upgrade from the previous one, starting with its 3.5-inch, 640 x 960 touchscreen, a much higher resolution than any iPhone has offered before.

It has a new slimmer design and runs iOS 4.0, the latest version of Apple's operating system, on a 1 GHz Apple A4 processor.

The iPhone 4 comes in two configurations: a version with 16 GB of storage costs $200 and one with 32 GB goes for $300. These prices are for new AT&T customers willing to sign up for a two-year contract, or current customers who qualify for a subsidy. Current customers who don't qualify will have to pay $200 more.

The iPhone 4 has a 5 megapixel rear-facing camera with a flash, as well as support for recording 720p video at 30 frames per second. In addition, it includes a small front-facing camera for video chatting with an app called FaceTime.

This smartphone has 3G wireless networking, as well as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a GPS receiver.

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