“Let’s recap the problem,” Comeau writes. “A small number of people reported iPhone 4 reception problems related to how they held the phone. I say a ‘small number”‘ because there’s still absolutely zero evidence of a high return rate or widespread customer dissatisfaction.”
“Then, a whole bunch of media types started trying to recreate the problem themselves by holding their phones every which way, trying to get the signal to drop,” Comeau writes. “So while these techno-hypochondriacs didn’t actually suffer from or notice this problem, they were determined to do so once they saw the opportunity to jump all over Apple.”
Comeau writes, “Consumer Reports delivered a magnificent troll job this week when it said it ‘couldn’t recommend the iPhone 4.’ …I’m just playing devil’s advocate here, but who cares about how well the iPhone 4 performs in an isolation chamber? I don’t make phone calls from my isolation chamber. No, I only use my isolation chamber to breathe in pure oxygen and protect myself from germs.”
“But wait, there’s more,” Comeau writes. “When Consumer Reports first looked at the iPhone 4, it said “some reviewers have reported problems with reduced reception when the iPhone 4 is being held in the left hand. So far, we’ve been unable to replicate the problems.” Unable to replicate the problems. Unable to replicate the problems. Unable to replicate the problems. Get it?”
Comeau writes, “I’d like to know: How in the blue hell does Consumer Reports place admittedly ‘anecdotal indications’ from an isolation chamber above what it found in normal use?”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Because if Consumer Reports didn’t place admittedly “anecdotal indications” from an isolation chamber above what it found in normal use, their website wouldn’t have a bunch of extra hits from a highly-desireable demographic that rarely, if ever, visits their paywall.
Seriously, if you ever find yourself reading Consumer Reports, stop! Just put it down and leave it in the doctor’s office along with the large print Reader’s Digest. If you’re subscriber… Yikes! Cancel immediately, you’re embarrassing yourself. Go read The Weekly World News instead, at least their “reports” have aliens.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “GetMeOnTop” for the heads up.]
More lame than Plame-Gate?
I don’t think so….
When the cover is blown on a covert operative, it compromises and exposes that operative’s contacts as well. Depending on who those contacts are and the country in which they’re located, it may also jeopardize their lives. That domino effect doesn’t fit my definition of “lame.” Nor would I use that word to describe people who outed a CIA agent to punish her husband. “Vindictive” would be more accurate.
I have the problem with the “Grip of Death”, but the “phone” component is of minor use for me. I have an iPhone for the apps, and I hold it differently when I’m working on it vs when I make a call. Would I return it because of the GoD? Maybe if I lived with it in my ear, but I don’t so I won’t.
The media looks at it as a phone first, most people that ACTUALLY USE IT look at the phone as just another component or app for it.
Hey MDN, how about a poll looking at primary usage?
If only people spent half as much energy worrying about something real. Like BP’s mess for example.
Foolishness. My new iPhone 4 does not lose calls any more than the 3GS – perhaps it is a little less. It is a great device that folks my age (49) never in a zillion years thought they’d see. ATT is sub-optimal – but big deal. The 99% of the time it all works is worth the 1% of non-workage. Seriously!
Apple products are not part of the Bill of Rights. Got a problem with a device or with Apple or with Steve J. – I got a ‘flash’ for ya: DON’T BUY THE PRODUCT. And don’t waste taxpayer dollars with idiotic lawsuits (the legal system operates on our tax dollars…). And stop trying to ruin our fun.
Go buy a Cricket, be a luddite and be happy with your luddite-self.
This is all so dumb. I’ve suffered no signal loss as if other phones do not have signal loss. Every phone on the market loses some degree of signal no matter what company you are registered with. This is really a bunch of bull by those who just wanna see Apple THE KING OF PHONES brought down. I bet not a single iPhone4 owner will turn in their phone for some inferior device on the market.
I’m OK with people posting and saying they don’t have any problems with their iPhone 4. But what is beginning to torque my jaws are the people (and web sites) who say there absolutely is no problem or they say just return it and get something else. Well, there IS a problem, and I don’t WANT anything else. I want an iPhone 4 that I can use for all its goodness, PLUS make phone calls with it.
I’ve posted pictures and I’ve described my problem in detail, where I can use (several) 3GS phones at my desk and hold them any way I want with no problem, but all of my 3 iP4s cannot hold a connection when I hold it like Steve Jobs holds his.
So you folks who say there is no problem… time to put up or shut up. Make a movie of an iP4 laying on a table with 2-3 bars. Pick it up and go to any web site, holding it in your left hand like Steve was holding his in the keynote. Show me the blue progress bar moving. Hang in there for 60 seconds and show me it NOT saying “No Service”. Make a phone call to someone. Let me hear it.
If you can do that with success, **I’LL** shut up. If you can’t, **YOU** shut up.
I’ve posted that challenge on this web site and several others. So far, no takers. So why is it that people who DO have this problem have no problem with posting a demo, but people without this problem refuse to even discuss it, much less post a demo?
Consumer reports has been proven to be corrupt.
How the h_ll can they state that the iPhone 4 has problems one day, and rank it the top smartphone the next day?
It’s called CYA in legal terms. It saves them from a lawsuit for lying in the first place.
They’re garbage!
As I have said before, Consumer Reports is OK for some things. But I do not rely upon CS test results or recommendations for electronic devices of any type.
@neomonkey
LOL. Go figure that the “executive director of the Center for Brand and Product Management at the University of Wisconsin” would say that the iPhone 4 is all about “brand.” Of course it is, because that it what she manages…
When I read stuff like that, it is straight GIGO. The source does matter.
MDN: biased and poor journalists.
Here’s MDN in May of this year touting a positive Consumer Reports survey for Apple Retail:
“Consumer Reports: Apple Retail Store is the best place to buy a cellphone”
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/25195/
And December of last year:
“Consumer Reports: AT&T;dead last in service survey; 98% of iPhone users would buy iPhone again”
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/23205/
Now, all of a sudden, because of CR’s damning iPhone 4 report, MDN yells: “Seriously, if you ever find yourself reading Consumer Reports, stop! Just put it down and leave it in the doctor’s office along with the large print Reader’s Digest.”
I have to admit, I think I keep coming back here because of the entertainment value of the idiocy of the people reporting here.
I don’t know how big the problem is, however I was one of the people suffering from the problem and today when I went to apple store for the problem they replaced my phone without asking many question. And, yes I saw four other people replacing there phones with same problem
I have the “death grip” problem and ya know what? It’s not that big of a deal. All you have to do is hold the phone in an ever so slightly different way and you can still hold it in your left hand and I can’t imagine anyone holding it that way when actually making a phone call.
Seriously. A lot of people just love drama and scandal and so they take every opportunity to blow something way out of proportion. Is there a problem? Yep. Is it a slight inconvenience? Yep. Is it a huge deal? Nope.
Grow up people.
@Wingsey
Cause you are a troll, that’s why. Take the phone back and get your money back, it clearly don’t work for you. Why do you need three iPhones again????
Spill The Beans: liar and deceitful asshole.
Let’s really “spill the beans,” shall we?
MacDailyNews has been on record at least since August 10, 2005, or approximately half a decade before the articles you cite as saying:
“We recommend that you if you must read Consumer Reports, read it with a grain of salt.” – MacDailyNews Take, August 10, 2005
Source: MacDailyNews: Consumer Reports dubiously finds 20-percent of Mac users ‘detected’ virus in last two years – August 10, 2005
Longtime readers know MDN’s position on CR. We don’t need it reiterated on every article, but maybe MDN should so that deceitful assholes don’t cherry pick articles in lame, failed attempts to bolster their false claims.
There may be all of 300 iPhone4s that are LEMONS.
Could you really sell more than 2,000,000 cell phones – IF THEY ARE ALL BROKEN?
How does that even make sense to those that may have a LEMON iPhone4?
Document the problems that you are having. In ALL of the different places that you have them. Return the phone with your ‘proof’. Get a replacement iPhone4 or your money back.
If you are pissing and moaning because you are dissapointed that the Apple product that you really, really wanted is less than perfect — then, CONTRIBUTE to the solution. If you are an AppleHater troll, then just drop dead.
The Red-Ring-of-Death on the xbox360, was PROVEN by the 50% failure rate. One of every two are returned. We aren’t seeing that here, are we?
No. We are not. Most of the screaming is from the same people posting in SEVERAL places. Day after day after day. Jeez, return your phone, then get back to work.
–
BTW, years ago Consumer Reports recommended an Apple// app called PowerText. It was touted as being very powerful. It was. But, your documents AND the ‘backups’ of your documents were on the same diskette! This made making large documents painful to manage. CR didn’t mention this in their review. It cost me $400 to find out that CR is useless. And, that the free Appleworks was much easier.
And FWIW, name one Mac that CR hasn’t damned with faint praise? Even if they actually ‘recommended’ it?
CR’s “solution” to the alleged problem was chosen over the other alternatve – wearing yellow dishwashing gloves.
The Riff and the Raff rhetoric and that has descended on the MDN reader feedback pages as of late, is typical of the audience that feeds the proliferation of sub standard l lynch mob journalism today.
Another step in the elective dumbing down of intellect and the elective ignorance choice that is plaguing the world.
Global warning …?! No such thing!
Amen brother.
There IS a problem, it’s just not big enough to warrant returning the phone over. Apple is the big boy now, so people are going to take potshots at it.
Wingsy, I’m posting a video doing exactly what you asked to my web site. I’ll send a link to MDN and ask them to forward it to you.
The guy is not looking at the whole picture;
“I say a ‘small number”‘ because there’s still absolutely zero evidence of a high return rate or widespread customer dissatisfaction.”
The fact is that the phone IS flawed, just not enough to warrant returning YET. Apple is an amazing company, people expect them to remedy the situation and are waiting to see what happens. The phone is amazing and they know it, I know it, and we are waiting to see what happens. I will NOT purchase a $30 piece of $2 rubber manufactured by Apple to fix an issue that should not be an issue. I did however purchase an $8 solution from Amazon to hold me over, I still have two weeks to return my phone if something is not done before then. I am also holding off upgrading my wifes phone till this is resolved.
There are many reasons why people are not returning them at this time, I hope I have explained some of them.
1. Amazing phone/device, people want to keep the functionality
2. Waiting on one of the most popular companies in the world to decide what they are going to do. Especially when they have a few weeks left that they can still return the device for a full refund.
3. You CAN just hold it differently in the interim while you wait for #2 (this is not a long term fix)
4. Faith in Apple
Cancelled CR yesterday.
Not because of the bogus “experiment” but because their attemps at quantifying subjective experience. I’ve always know this sort of pseudo science is bogus, I’d jut forgotten CR does it.
I’m certain that using subjective experience can help to rank products, but to try and assign them relative scores is silly!
I was in the bathroom at a local restaurant, low bars, and my mother-in-law’s call still came through loud and clear. And I didn’t have my phone bumper on at the time (I bought the bumper not because of any “grip of death” issues but because the sharper edges were irritating my hand; I’ll likely upgrade to an actual case when I find one I like). Performance is the key, not what’s showing up on the screen. Now if CR made a bunch of calls, held the phone in a certain way and lost the call when the bars dropped, that would be a different story.
@justme2
“Now if CR made a bunch of calls, held the phone in a certain way and lost the call when the bars dropped, that would be a different story.”
I have done just that quite a few times…