iPhone 4 Reception Problems - Dismissed by Steve Jobs...

image, Reuters

The iPhone 4 arrived amidst a veritable marketing tsunami and, over the last couple of weeks, has dominated the trending technology topics across the world. But, today, the iPhone 4 is trending for an altogether different reason - an apparent design flaw that sees it lose reception when held in the left hand...

The rumours seemed to start on the MacWorld forums where a user posted an issue they had encountered where the reception of the phone drops to one bar, and sometimes even zero, when the iPhone 4 was held in their hand. They helpfully posted a video to show what they meant...

Gizmodo picked up on the story and, gradually, user stories (and videos) began to surface of more and more people experiencing exactly the same problem - the antenna band of the iPhone 4 coming into contact with the hand and reception plummeting faster than BP's share price...

So, obviously Apple are going to be scurrying around in a panic, right? Worried that they are going to need to recall the millions of iPhone 4s that have been shipped out this week, they are probably trying to find some way calm the fears of their customers, yes?

Well, no.

Steve Jobs, in typical brusque Jobsian fashion responded to a concerned consumer directly by email. When informed about the apparent reception problems of the iPhone 4 when held in the hand, he was particularly helpful.

"Just avoid holding it in that way."

What??? Steve Jobs is trying to tell us that it's not a problem with the phone but, instead, a problem with the way people hold phones. Clearly Steve (who likely has someone to hold his phone for him) doesn't have to worry about such trivialities when making a phone call...

However, over on the Apple Insider forums a user demonstrated that it's not just us little people who don't know how to hold a phone properly - he created a photo montage of Apple promotional materials in which people are also holding their phone in the wrong way....

Apple helpfully released an official statement in which they explained that "Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance" and that users should "avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band."

Apple also says that the problem doesn't occur when using one of the available iPhone 4 cases - so, basically, it would seem Apple have made a design error and expect the user (who has already paid a fair bit for his sparkly new iPhone 4) to pick up the bill and buy a case to prevent the problem occurring...

Steve Jobs seems to be depending a little bit too much on the goodwill of his customers these days and this issue - unlike the reception on an iPhone 4 when you hold it in your left hand - isn't likely to go away...