iPhone 3G reception woes unfixable? Maybe, maybe not
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Aug 14th 2008 2:35PM
posted Aug 14th 2008 2:35PM
Support forum threads on Apple's site and a number of ramblings across these great interwebs are starting to complain at great length about the iPhone 3G's headlining new feature -- 3G reception, that is -- and pretty much every aspect of it: signal strength, call dropping, connecting to EDGE when 3G is present, the list goes on. Some smartypants analyst from financial firm Nomura thinks he has it all figured out, saying that the issues are "typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack" and suggesting that a firmware update pushed out to existing handsets is unlikely to ease the pain. We've been hearing that Cupertino could actually be working on just such an update at this very second, though, so this cat better get ready for the possibility that he could be eating his own words down the road. For what it's worth, intermittent issues have been reported the world over, so this doesn't seem to be anything to do with AT&T's (or anyone else's) infrastructure -- and needless to say, not everyone is having issues to start. And for anyone whose iPhone 3G we just jinxed by writing this post... well, our bad.
i am so tired of hearing about the 3g iphone!!!!!! its pathetic!!!! 3g isn't even available in most places in the U.S.!!!
Well, at least it's not as bad as when the first iPhone was released. Every other posting on EngadgetMobile was iPhone iPhone iPhone. I avoided EM and other phone sites for like two weeks after its launch because I was so sick of hearing it. lol
I'm so tired of hearing about the U.S. It's not even available in 95% of the world.
:P
I live in the Annapolis, MD area and am trying to decide betweeen an iphone (my heart's desire) w/ ATT service and keeping verizon's service and wating for the new Blackberry Thunder. My big question is how the ATT service is in this area, on the I-95 corridor between MD and Massachusetts, in cenral Mass, and between Annapolis and Chapel Hill, NC.
I've looked at the ATT coverage maps, but they area poor substitute for personal experience.
Any input would be most appreciated.
all of the losers on these sites get off to saying "3G", but the truth of the matter is that it's not that widely available and ultimately isn't going to make your life any better. Oh god, all of these greasy 3G pirates are going to set there triple cheeseburgers down to unload on me.. oh noooo
all of the losers on these sites get off to saying "3G", but the truth of the matter is that it's not that widely available and ultimately isn't going to make your life any better. Oh god, all of these greasy 3G pirates are going to set there triple cheeseburgers down to unload on me.. oh noooo
so wheres superdumbasserik to defend this article...
hehehe so first of all, you like to fantisize that your a a guy named blade.. Whatever floats your boat. Second: you seem upsessed with me... Sorry dude but I'm taken by a beautiful girl, try it sometime? Or do you Only like guys? Haha
It's Called a life, get one?
Erik F.T.W !!!!
:)
another useless comment by erik. then again we've come to expect that from a 12 year old.
If at least 3g wasn't so expensive $30 a month when you hardly get 3g reception what a rip off, typical ATT.
Hell -- my iPhone 3G gets better 3G coverage than my AT&T Tilt and Cingular 8525 ever did. I guess I'm one of the few people who is actually happy with the 3G coverage I'm getting with the iPhone. :)
Now if we could just get freaking turn-by-turn navigation, I could stop swapping SIM cards between the two.
Hopefully they can fix it. It would be nice if they promised a date. For those gadget geeks like me, time is here and gone. On to the Nokia e71. Literally side by side, same network the difference is ridiculous.
Its a shame apple doesn't speak up to us.
Ok. So I was completely anti iPhone ever since it first came out... Until two days ago when my spring mogul bit it... after 6 months of slowly biting it... after a year of pathetic Windows Mobile and the unusable blackberry browsers before that...
So I evaluated my options and what I could get in the $200 range, having spent close to $500 on the Mogul quite recently.
Well... The iPhone is amazing. I'm sure that anyone that's been through as many mobile OS's as I have will agree, I understand the hatred most of us harbor for Apple products, and would still rather shoot myself in the foot rather than switch to a Mac, but the phone... WOW. Can't keep my hands off of it. Even the battery life (that everyone says is horrible on the 3g model) is outlasting the WinMo phones by at least 3 hours, with much heavier use.
As far as 3g, when i bought it the other night I was in a 3g area and it ran a LOT faster than the Sprint EVDO-REV-A in our area, now that I'm back in my home town we only have EDGE and its running about as fast as my mogul REV-A phone did, so I have no problems with it.
Next week I'm in New York so it will be interesting to see just how fast 3g will be in an area that's really provisioned for it.
I was just considering how different the tone of this article is verses others. If this was about the LG Dare, or god forbid a Sprint phone like the Instinct, do you think they would be as forgiving? Don't take this as a jab at the iphone. As the article suggest, I'm sure this problem will be corrected shortly.
I have not had any "3G" issues in Alberta. Rogers coverage in the major Alberta cities is great and I have not dropped to Edge yet. No dropped calls. Yes, there are software issues still with the slow contact list and the occasional slow typing in text message.
So to summarize the iPhone 3G:
Untop on what the anti fanboys have been crying about:
# No mms
# Bad camera
# No apps in background
# iTunes
We also have
# Bad reception
# Not as fast in the menus as advertised
# The back plate cracks
# Not exactly that affordable as advertised
# Big boss Jobs can spy on you and terminate any app he sees fit
So what? I can´t really think of the right arguments against these so called "faults" right now, but with the help of the Apple fanboy zombie squad and their brainwashing distortionfield generator I´m sure we will turn this into a feature list in no time! Lets get crackin! ;)
Yeah this is crazy i own a 3g iphone and when i turn the 3g on i beraly get any reception and if i do the calls are dropped like crazy. So i just turned the 3g off that way my calls is loud and clear what really suxs is that u actually paid extra for the 3g when u don't even use it. Plus 3g suxs up the battery so badly i don't even get a whole day of battery with it. It really blows. the only reason i got the 3g iphone is because i sold my last one for the price that i bought my new one.. apple really have to get those issue addressed or they will be lose customers.
Try using a WM device with 3G-
I had one for over a year and had far worse 3G reception and no one (device maker or provider) ever addressed the issue or offered an update.
Since getting the iphone my 3G experience has been much better than WM and I don't need to shut down that pathetic WM browser everyday.
I think its a good sign that even though Engadget is very very iPhone biased they will publish not so good news about the iPhone. Shame they were so shy about the faults with the original FW of the 3G model. Fow me the UI seems like an overkill day-to-day use; nice as a novelty but daft when you know what you wnat to do and you want to do it quickly.
Well, this is in fact pretty typical pro-iphone stuff: basically telling no news to tackle the bad news.
I live in Europe and the 3G net is pretty good here. I own a 3G iphone and a Nokia N82 and have 2 SIM cards with the iphone net provider (Telia). I can confirm that, setting the 2 phones side by side with both in 3G mode, the iphone constantly registers lower signal levels than the Nokia N82 (in every test). Often the Nokia is showing full coverage while the iphone barely has 2 bars.
I have seen 2 theories about this (if you acknowledge that there is problem - which I believe there is). It is a hardware problem with a small percentage of units or it is a firmware/software problem that will be fixed in a future update (from apple). I naturally hope for the latter (as I am otherwise very impressed with the iphone). What I cannot understand though is this: If it is a firmware problem, and a lot of us are running the same firmware (more or less - or at least we are all running "faulty" firmware according to this theory), then why isn't everyone reporting this issue. Or is it the case that everyone with access to 3G is reporting the issue (and that most users - especially those in the US - don't have access to 3G and are therefore not aware of the problem). Alternatively, If it is not a firmware problem, and some people are lucky enough to pocess "error free" 3G iphones, then I guess I am looking at a future apple recall and replacement program (as I believe mine has a problem). :-(
I just got the 3g after having a nextel for years, the first call i made was dropped. I live in an area that is covered in 3g on apples website and the call quality is terrible. I turned 3g off and thats the way its staying. Whoevers fault it is this thing sucks as a phone.
The issue is if they will fix them at all.
Some people have said that the Tilt/Kaiser has worst 3G reception than iPhone 3G. Well, I've traveled Japan (talking about from Tokyo to the northern island), and 3G with a WM6.0 radio had been pretty much 99% consistent there. Signal in the rural boonies of the northern island, downtown, underground in the trains, in the underground restaurants, rain/snow/shine. It was very disgusting!
Back in the States here, there's like two AT&T towers near me that are down since July 11! and AT&T still hasn't bothered to fix them. It doesn't help that 3G is spotty all over Socal, there's a hill near the 101 that consistently drops any AT&T call, and I get dropped calls switched from 3G to Edge, not picking up 3G in an obviously 3G area -- metro LA, etc. This is all with the same 3G WIndows Mobile phone.
So the only common factor to blame here is AT&T and their crappy network rollout.
should of had nokia make it!