Consumer Reports Has an Easy Solution for iPhone 4's Wireless Woes

Consumer Reports has confirmed that user complaints with wireless reception on the new Apple iPhone 4 are real. However, it also has an easy and inexpensive solution for fixing the problem... even if it's not an ideal solution.

Engineers testing the iPhone 4 established that if the user's finger or hand touches a spot on the phone's lower left side -- an easy thing to do, especially for lefties -- the signal can degrade enough to cause the phone to lose its connection completely in areas with low signal strength.

The tests were conducted in a controlled RF isolation chamber. The phones were connected to base-station emulator devices which simulate carrier cell towers.

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, touching these antennas in a certain way can greatly reduce performance.

A Simple Solution
The problem isn't caused by the hand blocking the antenna, so Apple suggests that consumers put their smartphone in a case to prevent themselves from accidentally touching the device in the lower left side.

Consumer Reports has an even easier solution: cover the antenna gap with a piece of colored electrical tape.

Still, the organization considers this problem sever enough that it doesn't commend people buy the iPhone 4.

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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