There's an old joke about a man who visits a doctor, complaining that his arm hurts whenever he moves it a certain way. The doctor's response? "Stop moving it that way."
That pretty much sums up Apple's response to the people who have complained that holding the iPhone 4 in their left hand can cause signal strength to fall, dropping calls and reducing bandwidth. For these people -- over 40 of whom have contacted Wired.com -- touching the lower left corner of the iPhone's metal band is the source of the problem.
Here's Apple's official response to the problem:
Despite numerous reports from Wired.com readers, we have been trying to replicate the problem without success. According to Wired.com writer Brian X. Chen, if he grips the iPhone 4 firmly in his left hand while downloading a web page, one or two bars disappear from the signal strength indicator. I haven't been able to reproduce the problem at all.
Sascha Segan on Gearlog.com said he was able to reproduce the problem using what he calls a "death grip," holding it "in a slightly sweaty left hand, with my fingers covering the three black lines on the phone's edge and the bottom left corner in my palm." In that grip, he guesses, signal strength drops by about 3 to 5 dBm.
Solution: Don't hold your phone in a death grip, especially if you're left-handed and inclined to have sweaty palms.
And if you're one of the people who sees this problem even when holding the phone gently, put your iPhone 4 in a protective case -- or add a strip of black electrical tape to the lower left edge. Both break the electrical contact between the phone's antenna and your skin, and prevent the signal-loss from happening.
Photo courtesy Thomas Barnes
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