AppleCare: iPhone 4 Update Won't Solve Antenna Issue

OK, I'm obsessed. Well actually, it's inertia -- it's like every Apple news I see on my newsreader, I post. Apologies to the fanboys and girls.

Very disappointing that Apple released a BS-laden press release about the antenna issue and now AppleCare techs themselves are confirming that there is indeed an antenna issue. This corresponds with my own experience with the Apple Store in SOHO over the weekend when a store employee actually told me not to hold the phone "that way" -- and use two fingers! -- to avoid the lower left corner of the phone. (We couldn't get FaceTime to work and that was his suggestion).

They should just issue bumpers for free and move on. Denial is the issue here. We've already established that it's a design flaw. I've repeated the antenna issue on my own on every iPhone 4 that I've come across here in New York City.

From Gizmodo:

We called AppleCare three times today to confirm it. We told them that we were experiencing voice quality problems and call drops, as well as problems with internet access. Their response was immediate and unequivocal, the same in the three cases:

• There is an antenna interference problem when you hold the iPhone 4 in a certain way (the tests by Anandtech and many demonstration videos in the internet show that the signal drop will happen every time when you touch the phone's dead spot, on the left bottom corner).

• One solution is to hold the phone differently, avoiding to touch the left bottom corner of the phone (coincidentally, this is how models hold the iPhone 4 in most of Apple's promotional material).

• The other other solution is to buy a case or one of Apple's $30 bumpers (we are hosting a petition to ask Apple for free cases. You can sign it here).

• The incoming software update will not fix this antenna problem, only change the way the phone displays the available signal, make it more accurate.

Source Gizmodo