Apple’s iPhone 4 Reception Issues Continue to Mount

In the first two weeks that the iPhone 4 has been available, it’s been receiving both good and bad reception. For the most part, many users are impressed with the new hardware, and even those who opt to stick with their earlier iPhone models are pleased with iOS 4. The biggest complaint so far is one we covered soon after launch, regarding a problem with the phone’s reception when it’s held a certain way.

Last Friday, Apple sent out an open letter that addressed the reception issue, and admitted that it did indeed exist. To remedy it, the company said it would be releasing a software update in the near-future that would aim to fix it… except that it’s not going to. The real problem is that when the phone is held a certain way, the reception drops, while the issue Apple wants to fix is one with the algorithm that affects the number of bars the phone shows. Of course, a software fix isn’t going to affect an issue where holding the phone a certain way hurts the reception, regardless of how many bars are shown.

I found the entire letter a little absurd, and insulting to iPhone 4 users all over, so I decided to just remain quiet about it and let it slide. But over the past week, the company has followed-up and admitted that straight-out that the software update will not fix the reception issue… which of course is really the only issue. So, rather than recall the phones, like it should, Apple is focusing on a problem that most people didn’t even know existed, or cared about.

It was with a call to AppleCare where Gizmodo found out that the upcoming software update wouldn’t help the antennae issue, so it proposes that people sign its petition to get Apple to either fix the phones, or offer up free “bumpers” (one-color phone condoms) which do for some reason help the issue.

It’s not so much the fact that Apple refuses to fix the problem that gets me, but the fact that the company would rather ignore the issue and send out an open letter that insults the intelligence of anyone who reads it. Some are questioning whether or not a recall is going to happen, but the chances of that are insanely low. To be honest, I’m not even sure if a recall is truly warranted for such a “simple” issue, but I do think Apple should help remedy it in some way, whether that be via way of a free bumper or something similar.

While we already knew about it, the official AppleCare response is sad news. Like Gizmodo reader and former RF engineer for HP Medical products Gordon Cook said in a recent email: “Wrapping a metal antenna around a phone is simply asking for trouble, and Apple may in fact have realized too late that they had a real can of worms, so chose to release what they had instead of enduring a lengthy shipping delay. Now, after millions of phones shipped, and given the alternatives, screwing with the software is the only realistic way of fixing this, even if it’s mostly cosmetic.”