MacRumors

Late last month, Anandtech detailed the signal strength drop-off experienced by iPhone 4 users when bridging the antenna gap at the lower left corner of the device, mapping how the "bars" of signal strength shown on the device correspond to actual signal levels and how holding the phone in various positions affected that signal under iOS 4.0.

The results are conclusive - Apple has dramatically changed the signal strength to signal bar mapping in iOS 4.0.1 and the iOS 4.1 beta, making the dynamic range not only much broader, but the range values for each bar much wider. The range of signals that correspond to bars three and four are the same width, and bar two is only slightly less.

The cutoff value for two bars to one bar remains the same, but every other value has increased. The result is that the worst case drop of 24 dBm no longer makes all the signal bars disappear, but rather two.

Notably, Apple has adjusted the bar scale such that the lowest bar remains visible at a signal level down to -121 dBm, significantly lower than the -113 dBm limit in iOS 4.0. Anandtech's report claims that voice and data transmission on the iPhone 4 remained intact all the way down to -121 dBm, bolstering Apple's claims of increased overall sensitivity and reception with the iPhone 4's design.

The report claims that Apple's changes are doing away with a cover-up of AT&T's poor network coverage in many areas and will likely result in some confusion as customers see fewer number of bars than they are used to. The fact that Apple has also increased the heights of the lower bars alongside the change to the mapping of actual signal to bar display appears to be a ploy to somehow makes things appear better than they are, with the subtle, but baseless, suggestion that taller bars imply better signal.

The new signal strength visualization in iOS 4.0.1 is simply going to be more honest with iPhone users. Whether that's going to result in customers confused about why their phone performs "worse" after the update or simply get really mad at AT&T remains to be seen.

Regardless, many observers are expecting to hear more about Apple's response to the signal issue at the company's press conference scheduled for tomorrow. While the company's changes to the signal strength mapping and display may offer a more accurate representation of cellular coverage in a given location, it does not yet address the actual drop in signal seen with the iPhone 4's antenna design.

Silicon Alley Insider reports that it has spoken with a source close to the negotiations that ultimately resulted in HP acquiring Palm earlier this year. According to the source, Apple was very interested in acquiring Palm, primarily for its intellectual property, but was outbid by HP.

Even more interestingly, the source claims that Apple was interested in keeping Palm's business intact, possibly in order to challenge Research in Motion in the market of consumers focused on smartphones carrying hardware keyboards.

Apple was mostly interested in Palm's huge library of intellectual property and patents. And unlike some other bidders, Apple even seemed committed to funding Palm's operations, perhaps to challenge RIM's dominance in the keyboarded segment of the smartphone industry, our source says. (There's a bunch of problems with this idea, such as the idea of Apple supporting two rival app platforms, but that's what this person says.) Ultimately, Apple didn't bid high enough, while HP offered an amount the board couldn't say no to. (Recall that Steve Jobs tried to buy Palm years ago in its first life, too, when it was owned by 3Com.)

The source also shared a couple of other interesting pieces of information, including claims that Google expressed initial interest in Palm, primarily because it thought Apple might be interested, but backed off because it didn't know Apple was actually putting forth a bid. Additionally, Research in Motion initially had the highest bid for Palm and was close to sealing the deal but lost out when HP increased its bid.

Palm, which featured a number of former Apple executives and engineers on its team, faced off against Apple on a number of fronts, with Apple even resorting to veiled threats against the company over multitouch functionality and other features in Palm's webOS. The companies also sparred over iTunes syncing, with each side issuing multiple software updates to alternately enable and disable the Palm Pre's ability to directly tap into users' iTunes libraries to load media content.

- Improves the formula to determine how many bars of signal strength to display

Early reports on the signal strength indicator changes included in the iOS 4.1 beta released to developers yesterday suggest that the changes do not affect actual signal strength, but only adjust the visual "bar" indicators on the screen. Apple is holding a press conference tomorrow regarding the iPhone 4, and it is presumed that the company will be discussing the antenna issue at that event.

Apple has also released iOS 3.2.1 for iPad, addressing a number of issues including Wi-Fi connectivity issues as promised in an Apple support document posted several months ago:

- Improved Wi-Fi connectivity
- Fixed an issue that could prevent copy and paste of single-page PDF attachments in Mail
- Addressed an issue that could cause video playback to freeze
- Improved reliability of video-out when using iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter
- Added Bing as an option for Safari's search field

TheStreet reports on new research from Rodman Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar claiming that Apple has developed an internal insulator to isolate the iPhone 4's antenna connection that has been causing signal reception issues.

Apple has created "a design fix for the iPhone 4 that more adequately insulates the transceiver," said Rodman Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar, who spoke to the company's manufacturing partners.

Apple has told its manufacturers to alter the iPhone production process to include an internal component that will insulate the defective antenna connection that has disrupted the phone's signal reception, said Kumar. This internal bumper will give Apple a non-cosmetic solution and will presumably avoid the need to change the appearance of the phone, said Kumar.

The report notes that the implied change to Apple's manufacturing process is making its presence known in Apple's U.S. online retail store, where shipping estimates have slipped to three weeks from a 7-10 business day timeframe earlier. MacRumors has also received word that Apple has been delaying some iPhone 4 orders that had been carrying delivery estimates for the next few days, pushing them out to delivery next week while citing "an unexpected delay".

It remains to be seen if and how such an internal insulator would be distributed to existing iPhone owners, either on as-needed basis or through a complete recall. It is also unknown whether such a fix can simply be applied to existing iPhones or if units would need to be swapped out for replacement. Further details from Apple regarding the antenna issue are widely expected to be shared at the company's press conference scheduled for tomorrow.

Kumar's track record is relatively unknown, as he has only recently begun covering Apple. He has been quite vocal on the idea of a Verizon iPhone, claiming in January that Apple had settled on a CDMA-only chip from Qualcomm for the Verizon iPhone while reporting in late May that Apple had given manufacturing partner Pegatron/Asustek the go-ahead for Verizon iPhone production for as early as November of this year. Kumar has also reported that Apple has secured an 8-megapixel camera sensor from Sony for the 2011 iPhone, a claim that obviously has not been verified or disproved yet.

Research firms Gartner and IDC yesterday both released preliminary reports detailing U.S. and worldwide PC shipments for the second quarter of 2010, with both firms showing sales growth of Apple's Mac product outpacing that of the industry as a whole.

Apple's U.S. Market Share Trend: 1Q06-2Q10 (Gartner)

Gartner's Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q10 (Thousands of Units)

"The consumer PC market registered double-digit shipment growth, but consumer mobile shipment growth slowed. This was due in part to slower growth of mini-notebooks," Ms. Kitagawa said. "Surging popularity of Apple's iPad temporarily cannibalized mini-notebooks, as well as consumer notebook sales to some degree. It is not certain at this stage if the cannibalization will continue with the current price point of media tablets."

IDC similarly reports Apple's U.S. Mac sales growth as outpacing the overall industry, but to a smaller degree. IDC puts Apple's U.S. market share for the quarter at 8.8% on a unit increase of 15.4% from the year-ago quarter, when it held an 8.6% share of sales. Still, that performance moves Apple back into fourth place ahead of Toshiba and outpaces the more modest overall U.S. industry growth of 12.6% seen by IDC.

IDC's Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q10 (Thousands of Units)

Apple Inc.'s senior antenna expert voiced concern to Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs in the early design phase of the iPhone 4 that the antenna design could lead to dropped calls, a person familiar with the matter said.

Last year, Ruben Caballero, a senior engineer and antenna expert, informed Apple's management the device's design may cause reception problems, said the person, who is not authorized to speak on Apple's behalf and asked not to be identified.

The report also cites claims from a second source that one of Apple's carrier partners also raised concerns about the design ahead of the device's launch late last month, although presumably those concerns came much closer to the product's launch than Caballero's.

Apple declined to comment on the report, and Caballero did not respond to multiple attempts to contact him for the story.

Apple is set to hold a press conference at 10:00 AM Pacific Time tomorrow on the topic of the iPhone 4, and the company is widely expected to talk about the device's signal issues at the event.

It's actually pretty simple... Your Apple ID will be registered with your device/s, and that will allow other Apple devices to start a FaceTime call using your email address. Apple will also reportedly make use of push notifications to deliver these incoming FaceTime connection requests as we have been informed there is a push notification detector tied into the FaceTime frameworks in the new iPhone OS 4.1 beta.

While BGR claims that an Apple ID would be linked to the user's devices, screenshots accompanying the article suggest that merely an email address might be required, suggesting broader functionality.

Kuo, citing discussions with upstream component makers, noted that the 11.6-inch MacBook Air will feature an even slimmer and lighter design than the previous-generation models and the technologies used for the design and concept are expected to be broadly used in the company's other product lines to boost their competitiveness.

Meanwhile, Digitimes adds some details to the new iPod Touch that is expected this fall.

The new iPod touch will feature a 3-megapixel camera, capable of both photo and video recording, and will adopt Apple's latest A4 processor, which is also used in the iPhone 4.

The new iPod Touch was expected to share the A4 processor found in the iPhone 4 and iPad, but the exact camera specs have been up for debate.

iOS 4.0.1 would presumably include only bug fixes as well as the new signal strength indicators for the iPhone. The timing of the release the day before Apple's press conference is somewhat curious.

Apple on Wednesday invited select press to a special press conference to be held this Friday in California. Apple would only say that the press conference would be regarding the iPhone 4. No other information was available when I spoke with them tonight.

The topic of discussion, of course, is the iPhone 4 which has received much press over the past few weeks regarding a signal loss issue when it is held in certain ways. A Consumer Reports article reignited discussion of this issue earlier this week.

Aside from the signal bar changes, Apple has also made a number of other small improvements to iOS in their latest beta which was released to developers tonight.

Game Center returns to the beta releases with a brand new look (screenshot above). Game Center is Apple's matchmaking and leaderboard social network for iOS games. The lack of Game Center in the official iOS 4.0 release caused some confusion, but Apple had never intended Gamecenter to be launched alongside 4.0. Instead, Apple had promised Game Center to come out later this year.

It remains in beta testing for now with no announced release date. The style of the app, however, has been dramatically changed from the original release.

We've also collected a list of other changes that users have noticed in the 4.1 beta.

We'll continue to update as we collect more reports.

To address the issue, Apple will be issuing a software update "within a few weeks" that will adjust how signal strength bars are calculated and displayed. The change will adopt a recently recommended formula from AT&T that will more accurately display actual signal strength at any given time. The update will also increase the size of the smaller bars (1, 2, and 3) to make them easier to see.

The new signal bars appear slightly taller than the previous ones, and presumably Apple's calculations regarding signal strength has been revised.

The modem firmware has been updated to 02.07.01 from 01.59.00. No word on if people are having any actual signal improvements beyond the cosmetic changes.

Update: Early reports indicate no change in the reception loss experienced by some users.

Many users have been waiting for a promised iOS software update to address signal strength display issues on the iPhone 4, but it is likely that Apple is planning to push out a smaller update specifically addressing issue rather than waiting for iOS 4.1 and all of the associated developer testing before releasing it.

Computerworld reports that Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner today compared Apple's iPhone to his company's much-maligned Vista operating system, suggesting that Apple might be headed for a similar experience to that of Microsoft in terms of customer response and criticism.

"It looks like the iPhone 4 might be their Vista, and I'm okay with that," said Kevin Turner, Microsoft's chief operating officer, in a keynote speech at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), which runs through Thursday in Washington, D.C.

According to the report, Turner also took the opportunity to poke fun at the iPhone 4's signal issues in promoting Microsoft's upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system.

"One of the things I want to make sure you know today is that you're going to be able to use a Windows Phone 7 and not have to worry about how you're holding it to make a phone call," Turner said, referring to the Microsoft mobile operating system set to debut on smartphones this fall.

Turner's comment follows a full-page ad in The New York Times from Verizon and Motorola promoting the Droid X by poking fun at Apple CEO Steve Jobs' recommendation that iPhone 4 users "just avoid holding it in that way."

Meanwhile, a new survey from ChangeWave Research shows just 2% of respondents who are planning to buy a new smartphone in the June-August timeframe looking to buy a Windows Mobile phone, while 50% are planning to purchase an iPhone. The survey was, however, conducted before the iPhone 4 was released and its signal issues became known.

Market research firm NPD today announced the results of a recent survey of iTunes Store customers regarding their interest in a free or paid streaming service that would allow them to access content on a variety of devices. According to the survey, about 15% of the 50 million U.S. iTunes Store customers would be interested in a paid model, with that number nearly doubling if the service were to be free.

Between seven million and eight million iTunes users in the U.S. would have strong interest in one of the paid subscription options, according to the report. These consumers indicated a willingness to pay a minimum monthly fee of $10 -- either for streaming music or access to their personal music libraries on multiple devices. NPD estimates that there are 50 million iTunes users in the U.S. According to NPD's music industry research, a model that offers iTunes users free access to their own music libraries would attract in the range of 13 to 15 million subscribers.

The report notes that if the consumers indicating a strong interest in a paid subscription service were to sign for such a service priced at $10 per month, it would represent a $1 billion market opportunity in the first year. The market would be expected to increase as customers purchase Internet-connected devices in greater numbers and the benefits of a cloud-based service become more clear.

Rumors of cloud-based iTunes media content have been circulating for some time now, although reports have indicated that music labels are not yet on board with the idea.