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First hand experience of antenna problem
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And I’ve never used a case because I don’t like em and I don’t want to have to use one. Wife feels the same. And if you’ve tried to use the phone for a week while trying to continuously be aware of how you hold it, you’ll soon realize how useless that is. We can’t do it ALL the time.
Please help me understand ... because frankly, I don’t get why some people are so reluctant to buy a case. Surely it is not the cost ... my question is: what if you drop your phone?
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I don’t think it’s that people are reluctant to purchase or pay for a case. It’s a simple matter of not wanting to use one. Personally, I hate them. I’d rather drop my phone (which I have many times) and risk damaging it than have to deal with a clunky add-on. I don’t like the way they feel in my hand, I don’t like the way they change the size and shape of the phone, and I don’t like the way they look. It’s really that simple. There is no way I’m going to use one. Period. Not even if it were free. Can you tell how I feel about this issue?
As an analogy, I have a beautiful car that I really like. I can sometimes be obsessive about keeping it cleaned and maintained. It pains me to see paint chips on the front clip from stones and road debris, but there is no way I would even consider putting a bra or even clear coating on her and ruining her beautiful German lines. I kind of feel the same way about cases on an iPhone.
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I’ve never used a case with either my 1st gen or 3GS iPhones. I briefly tried one on my original iPhone that my daughter bought me for Christmas and hated it. They make the phone either too bulky or prevent easily slipping it into and out of my pocket.
I always keep the iPhone in my left hip pocket with nothing else in it (no keys, change, etc.) I have never dropped either phone ever.
When I got my 3GS, I gave my gen1 phone to my daughter for use as an iPod. It still looked new. My current 3GS still looks new as well.
Cases are not for everyone. I enjoy always going “commando”.
Edit: Use of the case on my original iPhone prevented the use of the dock also. I would have to remove the case to use it which was a pain.Signature
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Chessie and incorrigible: Thanks for the insight ... I respect your choice ... even though I know that I would never do without a case. I used to work in Apple retail and maybe I am skewed by complaints from those who dropped their phone with no case and still thought it was Apple’s fault.
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These guys don’t use cases either
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“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”
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These guys don’t use cases either
Hehehe ... good point ... but I think they would have an easier time getting a free replacement than me if they drop their phone
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No big deal. A replacment’s only about 2 shares of APPL :wink:
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“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”
- Jimi Hendrix -
I was just in the Apple store here in Portland. I tried to duplicate the problem on several of their iPhones and had difficulty doing so. I had to try really hard to do it, and I could never do it twice on the same phone. I couldn’t do it by simply holding the phone in my hand. I had to actively press a finger across the antenna gap. The bars would go down, but after a few seconds they came back up.
Now when I was in the Navy I was a communications electronics technician 1st class. Since then I’ve been involved with RF systems that gather data via cell phones and mesh networks. I sorta know what I’m talking about. What it looks like to me is that there is an automatic gain control associated with the antenna tuning circuitry that adjusts for signal attenuation. In the case of the iPhones I played with today, it looks like the response of that circuit is either purposely dampened, or it’s being misled by a faulty signal strength algorithm. It looks like the iPhones I played with eventually compensated for the loss of antenna efficiency, but reacted too slowly to keep the signal from going to near zero. If I’m right this is a simple software tuning fix.
BTW, while I was there they announced to the whole store that it was the 5 year anniversary of that store, and that a new store would open shortly in Boise, Idaho.
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Apple has posted a new antenna portion of the site:
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David Nelson
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I can reproduce the decrease in signal strength if I grip my phone without a case on. But that said, I use a case because I like keeping my equipment in mint condition. So far I have not had any dropped calls on my iPhone 4, which is more than I could say about my previous iPhone 3G.
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I took my bumper off yesterday—just as a show of solidarity that the “antenna issue” is way overblown. Haven’t had a dropped call yet. I plan to leave the bumper off and go without a case for the rest of this phone’s life. By the way, I had almost forgotten how nice this phone is “naked”.
Ummm… I mean the iPhone is naked. Not me.
[ Edited: 17 July 2010 10:01 PM by Francisco Geraci ] -
I took my bumper off yesterday—just as a show of solidarity that the “antenna issue” is way overblown. Haven’t had a dropped call yet. I plan to leave the bumper off and go without a case for the rest of this phone’s life. By the way, I had almost forgotten how nice this phone is “naked”.
Ummm… I mean the iPhone is naked. Not me.
My iPhone 4 goes nude during the day usually. It wears protection at night though when I’m out and about.
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As an analogy, I have a beautiful car that I really like. I can sometimes be obsessive about keeping it cleaned and maintained. It pains me to see paint chips on the front clip from stones and road debris, but there is no way I would even consider putting a bra or even clear coating on her and ruining her beautiful German lines. I kind of feel the same way about cases on an iPhone.
3M’s invisible bra is the way to go. If you take a rock, it bounces off a plastic film, not your paint. You can remove the 3M product later if you like. I would not own a new car (especially darker-colored vehicles) without it.
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As an analogy, I have a beautiful car that I really like. I can sometimes be obsessive about keeping it cleaned and maintained. It pains me to see paint chips on the front clip from stones and road debris, but there is no way I would even consider putting a bra or even clear coating on her and ruining her beautiful German lines. I kind of feel the same way about cases on an iPhone.
3M’s invisible bra is the way to go. If you take a rock, it bounces off a plastic film, not your paint. You can remove the 3M product later if you like. I would not own a new car (especially darker-colored vehicles) without it.
For car nuts… I’ve used 3m on cars. It’s OK but it does have an “orange peel” affect, and after about 6 years begins to turn yellow. There’s a product called Venture Shield that is cosmetically better than the 3M product but not as strong. I recently did my car’s bumper with the 3M product but used the venture shield everywhere else (product wrapped underneath panels to avoid seams). I have not yet had anyone notice that my car has a protective coating. Pretty amazing. As an FYI, 3M recently purchased Venture Shield.
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As an analogy, I have a beautiful car that I really like. I can sometimes be obsessive about keeping it cleaned and maintained. It pains me to see paint chips on the front clip from stones and road debris, but there is no way I would even consider putting a bra or even clear coating on her and ruining her beautiful German lines. I kind of feel the same way about cases on an iPhone.
3M’s invisible bra is the way to go. If you take a rock, it bounces off a plastic film, not your paint. You can remove the 3M product later if you like. I would not own a new car (especially darker-colored vehicles) without it.
I black dark enough? My car goes “commando”. :-D
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