Old iPhone Signal Bar Tweak Causes New Problems

All eyes are on the Cupertino company’s next move to rectify the problem caused by their inaccurate signal displays. In an open letter, the mobile industry titan revealed the truth behind the numerous dropped calls, unsent SMS and connection problems experienced by iPhone 4 owners. The clincher is that Apple seemed to be well aware of the reception issue years before they even started working on the iPhone 4.

In July of 2008, version 2.0 of the iPhone 3G platform was released to the public and was reportedly full of bugs. A fix all patch was then released in August, a month after version 2.0 went live. The patch notes indicated that a number of performance related issues would be corrected upon installation of the patch. The description was very vague, but the noticeable improvements included improved keyboard responsiveness, quicker backups and less lag in the Contacts app. According to ZDNet’s observation, the update also resulted in an improved reception:

“One major improvement that I am seeing is that the reception capability has improved with the working 3G/EDGE data auto-switching”.

Or so we thought. The signal bar formula they used for the current operating system may have remnants of the old update, causing it to display one to two bars more than the actual signal reading of the device:

“Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place”.

So was this something that the Apple company neglected? Probably so. After all, there are more important wow factors to focus on such as its HD recording capabilities or its spiffy new Retina Display. The Cupertino company failed to check the basics including the signal bar display. The iPhone 4’s screen adhesive did not even have enough time to dry before it was out the door.

At least the problem can be corrected by yet another software update. Hopefully Apple is not out to give quick cosmetic fixes this time around.