If you’ve been following the “thin metal strip” antenna debacle, you’ll be happy to see that Bloomberg recently revealed the topic to be internally controversial inside Apple itself, up to a year before the iPhone 4 was released. In Apple Engineer Told Jobs IPhone Antenna Might Cut Calls, Bloomberg News reports:

Apple Inc.’s senior antenna expert voiced concern to Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs in the early design phase of the iPhone 4 that the antenna design could lead to dropped calls, a person familiar with the matter said.

Last year, Ruben Caballero, a senior engineer and antenna expert, informed Apple’s management the device’s design may hurt reception, said the person, who is not authorized to speak on Apple’s behalf and asked not to be identified. A carrier partner also raised concerns about the antenna before the device’s June 24 release, according to another person familiar with the situation.

So the plot thickens. The biggest outstanding question is, “What will Apple do next?” Well, just now I plugged in my iPhone and got the following software update notice:

iOS 4.0.1 Software Update for iPhone

This update contains bug fixes and improvements, including the following:

• Improves the formula to determine how many bars of signal strength to display

Products compatible with this software update:
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4

For feature descriptions and complete instructions, see the user guides for iPhone at http ://support.apple.com/manuals/iphone

I did the update and I don’t see any differences on my 3GS….

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 15th, 2010 at 7:38 pm and is tagged with iphone 4, ruben caballero, apple engineer, antenna design, support apple, iphone, feature descriptions, metal strip, chief executive officer, thin metal, steve jobs, design phase, software update, signal strength, ios, debacle, bug fixes, news reports, june 24, improvements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.

2 Responses to “Apple iOS 4.0.1 Update – Fixes Antenna Issue”

1. Craig Mullins says:

   7/15/2010 at 10:46 pm

   So they basically just re calibrated what the signal strength says to make up for the deficiency of the antenna? Is that what they are saying?

   Reply
   • Elliott Back says:

     7/15/2010 at 11:07 pm

     Apparently so!

     Reply