O'Grady's PowerPage

Tag: handset

  • ChangeWave poll reports fewer dropped iPhone calls on Verizon network, slightly higher level of satisfaction

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    There may have been a reason for your waiting for the iPhone to come to Verizon’s network.

    Per research firm ChangeWave’s report, owners of Apple’s iPhone 4 on the AT&T network are more than twice as likely to report dropped calls than Verizon customers, a new survey has found.

    ChangeWave on Tuesday released the results of its latest survey, comparing AT&T iPhone 4 owners and Verizon iPhone 4 owners. The 4,068 respondents showed that 4.8% of AT&T iPhone 4 owners experienced a dropped call on their handset over the past 90 days, compared with 1.8% of Verizon subscribers.

    Those results are similar to an industry-wide, non-iPhone-specific poll conducted separately by ChangeWave. In that poll, 4.6% of AT&T subscribers reported dropped calls, compared with 1.4% of Verizon customers.

    Also surveyed were prospective future iPhone 4 buyers, most of which indicated they are likely to buy the handset on Verizon’s network while 46% of respondents said they are likely to choose Verizon, 27% said they would sign with AT&T. 27% said they are unsure or did not choose AT&T or Verizon.

    “Verizon is still in the very early stages of its iPhone 4 offering to consumers,” ChangeWave said, noting that the CDMA iPhone 4 just launched in February “It remains to be seen how well the Verizon network performs as the number of Verizon iPhone 4 owners ramps up and inevitably puts more pressure on their system.”

    Finally, the survey also asked customers about their satisfaction with the iPhone 4, and the results showed near-identical happiness on the part of both Verizon and AT&T customers. Verizon customers were slightly more satisfied, with 82% choosing “very satisfied,” compared to 80% of AT&T iPhone 4 users.

    16% of Verizon customers identified themselves as “somewhat satisfied,” while 18% of AT&T customers were of the same opinion. That means that 98% of both AT&T and Verizon iPhone 4 users consider themselves “satisfied” at some level with their handset.

    If you have any feedback on this or are reclassifying your iPhone as a fairly expensive paperweight today, let us know in the comments.

  • White iPhone 4 unit appears in Vodafone Germany’s SKU system

    Wireless carrier Vodafone Germany was the source of minor attention on Monday with a spotting of white iPhone 4 listings in its inventory system. Per Engadget, entries for both the 16GB and 32GB versions of a “weiß” (“weiss,” or white) version showed up alongside the usual black (“schwarz”) versions. The source who leaked the images claimed these weren’t just placeholders and would have a launch “soon.”

    The timing should be treated with caution as Apple has officially delayed the alternate color scheme until spring 2011. A spring debut even in March could have it on sale for three months or less before it was replaced with the iPhone 5. A white iPhone 4 isn’t thought likely to co-exist with the iPhone 5 as Apple has never had more than one previous-generation iPhone on sale at a time.

    Unofficial reasons for the virtual cancellation of the white iPhone 4 have been broad. Most have pinned it on inconsistent coloring for the iPhone’s glass. In one circumstance, it was claimed that the white hue combined with the iPhone 4’s design interfered with the camera, but this hasn’t been proven so far.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available and if you’ve been hankering for a white iPhone 4 since June, I’m not sure what to say.

  • Apple distribute iOS 4.1 beta to testers, addresses iPhone 4 signal, reception issues

    If your software’s picky and people are complaining, there’s always the chance to fix it in the update. Per AppleInsider, Apple began widespread testing of its iOS 4.1 update on Tuesday, the beta delivering changes to the way the handset displays signal strength.

    Build 8b5080c of iOS 4.1 beta 1 began making its way to developers alongside iOS SDK 4.1 build 10M2304. Beta testers who reported in stated that one visible change is the new signal bar, which presents taller bars at the low end of the scale to make it easier to read. They also report the signal bars seem to better exaggerate signal drop off, with fewer bars visible when in an area of with limited reception.

    Responding to widespread criticism over reception problems with the new touch-screen handset, Apple earlier this month penned an open letter to iPhone 4 users, in which it claimed that the formula used to calculate bars of signal strength on the device is inaccurate, and would be corrected in the coming weeks through a free software fix.

    “Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength,” the company said. “For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars.”

    Apple added that users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone 4 in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because their handset is erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. “Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place,” said the company, which maintains that the iPhone 4’s wireless performance “is the best [it has] ever shipped.”

    For their part, wireless experts and well-regarded product research firm Consumer Reports have disputed Apple’s claims through their own research which alleges that the iPhone 4 suffers from reception issues when held by a user in a particular manner.

    In a surprise move, Consumer Reports announced on Monday that it would no longer recommend the iPhone 4 to potential buyers due to reception problems that it believes to be a result of the design of the handset. The research firm issued the statement on its official electronics blog, stating that it reached that conclusion after testing three iPhone 4 handsets that were purchased from three separate retailers in the New York area inside a controlled environment of a radio frequency isolation chamber.

    While iOS 4.1 beta appears to deliver Apple’s controversial ‘fix’ to the reception issues, there’s yet to be reliable word on wether the beta also addresses inaccuracies in the phone’s proximity sensor, which have similarly helped to sour the iPhone 4 experience for many customers.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

  • iPhone 4 shipments arrive at Walmart, first box photos taken

    The first iPhone 4 units have begun arriving at retailers in anticipation of the unit’s June 24th launch. Per Engadget, a Walmart worker has taken the first picture of the unit’s new packaging:

    Unlike each past iPhone, the iPhone 4�s box does not feature a life-sized, forward-facing representation of the phone enclosed. Instead, it shows off only the top portion of the phone, facing the right, with its power and volume buttons, ring/silent switch, headphone port, auxiliary microphone, forward facing camera, and a portion of the display visible, all set against a black background. The sides and the top of the box, meanwhile, appear to be similar to past releases. A picture of the new 8GB iPhone 3GS packaging has also appeared online; it is identical to the past packaging apart from depicting a default iOS 4 installation instead of iPhone OS 3.

  • Apple “rejiggers” iPhone to ease load on AT&T network

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    A new report profiling AT&T’s bandwidth troubles posed by millions of iPhone units reveals that AT&T had Apple modify the handset to ease strain on the company’s network. Per the Wall Street Journal, AT&T Chief Technology Officer John Donovan said he and other executives flew to Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., campus to give the handset maker a “crash course in wireless networking.” With regular return meetings at Apple, AT&T employees helped the iPhone designers create new technologies to limit the strain on the wireless provider.

    “Apple rejiggered how its phones communicate with AT&T’s towers,” the report said. “As a result, the phones now put less of a load on the network for such simple tasks as finding the closest tower or checking for available text messages.”

    Donovan told the Journal that Apple’s designers are now “in a Master’s class” on networking, having learned the basics and worked with AT&T to improve the iPhone dramatically. Exactly what changes were made, and whether they were hardware or software based, were not revealed.

    The article also revealed that AT&T executives set up a 100-day play in December of 2009 to improve the company’s network in large cities where users most commonly experience dropped calls. A random performance test released in February found that AT&T’s 3G network speeds had improved by 84%.

    But the Journal also noted Tuesday that AT&T is still “racing” to improve its network as Apple is rumored to be working on a CDMA capable iPhone that could be headed to the Verizon network as soon as this year.