Steve Jobs Describes iPhone 4 Signal Strength as a 'Non Issue'

Thursday June 24, 2010 5:05 pm PDT by Arnold Kim

Steve Jobs holding iPhone 4 in problematic way during WWDC keynote
MacRumors forum user samcraig emailed Steve Jobs about the low signal issue while holding the new iPhone 4 in a specific way. The potential issue has been generating a lot of discussion. Samcraig emailed Steve Jobs:

Question - What's going to be done about the signal dropping issue. Is it software or hardware?

To which, Jobs replied with a typically short response:

Non issue. Just avoid holding it in that way.

In a followup email, Jobs then expanded with this explanation:

Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.

Steve Jobs has been known to respond to emails and we were able to log into Samcraig's email account to verify the authenticity of the emails, so we believe these are real.

Update: This has been confirmed as an official statement from Apple.

Top Rated Comments

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samcraig

25 months ago

Is he trying to be funny - or does he really think that's the solution.

Wow

Rating: 1 Positives / 0 Negatives

samcraig

25 months ago

I am cutting and pasting (happy to also furnish a screen shot with my personal info blurred out). But here's the email:

I emailed Steve and he replied back (cutting and pasting below) Happy to send screen shot, forward email or whatever as "proof" it's original... Please keep my contact info confidential though...

Delivered-To: xxxxxxxx
Received: by 10.229.102.15 with SMTP id e15cs172969qco;
Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:19:26 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by xxxxxx
with SMTP id f22mr10035619wfo.126.1277421565152;
Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:19:25 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path:
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by mx.google.com with ESMTP id y22si19433276wfd.14.2010.06.24.16.19.24;
Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:19:25 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of sjobs@apple.com designates 17.254.13.23 as permitted sender) client-ip=17.254.13.23;
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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:19:24 -0700
From: Steve Jobs
Subject: Re: Simply Brilliant iPhone 4
In-reply-to:
To: xxxxxxxxxx
Message-id:
MIME-version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1078)
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
References:
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Non issue. Just avoid holding it in that way.

On Jun 24, 2010, at 12:14 PM, xxxxxx wrote:

Thanks for the tech.

Question - What's going to be done about the signal dropping issue. Is it software or hardware?

Best,
xxxxxxxx

Admin Note: This has been confirmed, and Apple has released an official statement reflecting the same sentiment.

Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives

jtara

25 months ago

LOL on "just avoid holding it that way".

Waiting for the "lefties" class-action.

Jon Ive is obviously a rightie. Time for him to go. Let's get a leftie this time.

Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives