Linked List: July 17, 2010

Saturday, 17 July 2010

‘Bars’ as a Unit of Measure 

Aaron Swartz:

If, on the other models they compared the iPhone 4 against, they had shown the actual dBm (the generally-accepted measure of signal strength) lost by “holding it wrong,” we could have fairly compared their issues to the iPhone 4’s. But instead of having a debate about signal lost — the real issue for users — Apple has consistently tried to distract people with the issue of bars shown.

This can’t be an accident. Those advanced phone testing facilities must keep full track of actual dBm — it would be ridiculous to try to test a phone based on how many “bars” it had — yet, even after a talk supposedly about “hard data,” Apple still hasn’t once shown us a real dBm number on any phone!

Astute point. So, why omit precise data? Could be that the dBm numbers make the iPhone 4 look bad. Could be that Apple felt they should talk and show “bars”, arbitrary nonsense though they are, because “bars” are what people think is the actual metric. Could be that a precise fair dBm comparison between these three or four phones would have taken a week or longer, and they didn’t want to wait for that because this was a PR fire. (Based on what we were told during the lab tour yesterday, it really might take several full days to accurately measure the antenna of a single device. Several individual tests run for 24 hours each.)

Three million and counting iPhone 4 users seem happy, or at least satisfied, with the device’s reception, so I don’t think Apple is hiding anything truly bad here. But because there was no discussion of actual signal strength numbers, we do not know.

(Swartz’s comparison of Steve Jobs to Richard Nixon strikes me as a little overwrought, to say the least.)

Nokia: ‘We Prioritize Antenna Performance Over Physical Design if They Are Ever in Conflict’ 

Judging by how their phones look, must be a lot of conflicts.

Consumer Reports Still Won’t Recommend iPhone 4 

They want Apple to do a little dance while they give away free iPhone cases.

Pre-Installed Android Apps 

The LA Times:

The Droid X comes loaded with several nonstandard applications for Google’s Android, most of which cannot be removed. Among the phone’s so-called junkware is a Blockbuster video app and a demo for an Electronic Arts game called Need for Speed: Shift.

You can’t remove them because Android is open.

Matt Buchanan on the Droid X 

Matt Buchanan:

As a pure expression of the limits of mobile hardware and industrial design, the Droid X is kind of a beautiful thing. But that’s about the only good thing about the Droid X.

The software — a discordant melange of the not-so-fresh Android 2.1 and various bits of the Blur “social networking” interface from Motorola’s lower-end Android phones — is the shudder-inducing poster child for the horrors that can occur when most hardware companies try to make software. It’s ugly, scattershot, and confusing. It feels almost malicious.

Sounds great.

RIM Statement on Antenna Attenuation 

RIM co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie:

Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation.

Sounds angry, but I don’t see what exactly was “distorted”.

John Siracusa on the Unanswered Questions From Apple’s Antennapalooza 

I don’t think there’s even a question that the iPhone 4, because of its external antenna, is susceptible to a different type of signal attenuation than all phones with internal antennas. To drop the signal with other phones, including the iPhone 3GS, you have to grip them such that your palm is interfering with the antenna. The iPhone 4 is susceptible to this too, but also susceptible — sometimes — to attenuation from the light touch of any skin at all that bridges the antenna gap.

That doesn’t mean the iPhone 4 suffers from more or worse attenuation than other phones. Apple made the case that it does not. But it is different, and for whatever reason, Apple didn’t want to address that directly.

What I took away from the press conference is that Apple believes the iPhone 4 antenna is better than the previous iPhone antennas, but it has a more sensitive “weak spot”. And, that more sensitive weak spot is inherent to the external antenna design. In short, that it’s a trade-off — better signal quality overall, better aesthetics, more structural rigidity, even better battery life because there’s room for a bigger battery without an internal antenna. The trade-off is that all of those benefits come at the expense of a more sensitive “weak spot”. (I put that in quotes because it’s Jobs’s term for the infamous lower-left gap in the antenna frame.)

But Jobs never used the word “trade-off”, and clearly didn’t want to. I think he should have.

Andy Ihnatko on Antennapalooza 

Andy Ihnatko:

Steve Jobs didn’t fall to his knees, rend his garment, clap his hands together, and beg for forgiveness from users and stockholders.

This has upset many people.

These people are idiots.