Apple has posted a new Web page on its site dedicated to information about the iPhone 4 antenna (and other smartphone antennas) and the extensive facilities the company has developed and dedicated to testing the wireless capabilities of its iOS devices. The page even includes an unprecedented and in-depth video tour of Apple’s “Antenna Design and Test Labs.”
Apple has included images and video from its R&D labs and manufacturing facilities in the recent past, but this video offers the public (and the competition, for what that’s worth) a look into how Apple spent some US$100 million in developing its antenna design and testing facilities.
“Apple never releases a product without thoroughly testing it first,” the company said on its page. “To do this, we built our multimillion-dollar antenna design and test labs. These labs feature 17 different antenna characterization chambers (or anechoic chambers) designed to accurately measure antenna and wireless performance.”
The video offers a look at several of those anechoic chambers, an explanation of how they’re used, and information about the materials used to construct them.
This uncomfortable-looking chap is testing the phone as it it used when held by a person
Other chambers in the video test the phone being held in place by robots and brackets