Adam Snyder

There’s no excuse for handset design carelessness like this. Especially in an Apple-designed handset.

I had a Genius Bar appointment today, which was made on Wednesday night by AppleCare folks after being on the phone, troubleshooting, for nearly two hours. During that AppleCare conversation, the tech support rep walked me through all the diagnostic tests necessary to rule out software issues. We ended the conversation with the Genius Bar appointment being set up and instructions for me to visit a local AT&T (company-owned) store to get the micro-SIM swapped out. I did that yesterday, and with the new SIM card, there was no difference.

I actually wasn’t expecting there to be a difference. I’ve known all along that’s a hardware/design flaw. Knowing the solution to the issue is encasing the phone in a rubberized case, I was hoping that when I showed up for my appointment at the Genius Bar, an Apple “Bumper” case would be given to me free of charge. 

I checked in at 11:00 AM and within a minute or two, my name was called. It wasn’t approached by a “Genius”, rather, one of the “Concierge” walked up to me and said, “Are you Adam?”

“Yep,” I replied, holding my iPhone 4 out in front of me.

“What seems to be the problem with your iPhone?”

“When I hold it, I get no reception.”

With a friendly voice, the woman explained to me that Apple is aware of this problem, but there are no available solutions for this problem.

The Concierge said that I had, basically, four “options” at this point: 1) Buy a case for it (which would fix the problem), 2) Return it for a refund, 3) Change how I hold the phone in my hand, or 4) Put a piece of tape over the problem area (where the two antennas meet at the bottom left corner of the frame).

Honesty, I don’t really consider those actual “options” because 1) I shouldn’t HAVE to buy a case to use the product as advertised (plus, they had sold out of cases earlier in the day), 2) If I return my iPhone, what do they suggest I do? (Go to Verizon?), 3) I shouldn’t have to change how I hold a product to make it work properly, and 4) Tape? Really?

Well, I chose option 4), went back to work, found some vinyl electrical tape, cut a 0.25” x 0.75” rectangular strip, and applied it to the area in which I was instructed.

I’ll be damned. It worked. No more dropped bars.

I’m anxious to see what Apple comes up with as an official fix. Only time will tell.