iPhone 4 antenna experiment anyone?
I've already asked this in the http://meta.ifixit.com/ section, but in case more, or other, people check in here at the Answers section (and because this could be considered a repair question), I'd like to post it here too:
It would be nice if someone could do this experiment that might answer some questions about the iPhone 4 antenna's lower left side's no-touch zone problem, or maybe even fix it: since touching the gap between the two antennas at the top of the phone doesn't cause signal loss, move the wire that connects the logic board to the left-side Bluetooth etc. antenna, to the other end of that antenna at the top of the phone, and then test whether touching the left-side no-touch zone still messes with cellphone reception, or if this moves the no-touch zone to the top of the phone, which almost nobody touches while making a call. If cellphone reception still works when the phone is rewired like this, and the left-side gap is no longer a no-touch zone, then you'd want to test the rewired phone in locations that have low ATT signal strength, to see whether the signal strength that gets into the phone is still comparable to the pre-rewired, hold-it-like-Jobs-says state.
Update July 24 2010: It turns out that the wire running above the speaker assembly, that I thought was connecting the logic board to the bottom end of the Bluetooth/wifi/GPS antenna (the longer antenna), is actually connecting the logic board to the bottom end of the cellphone antenna. I made my initial judgement based on looking at the ifixit teardown photos, which aren't clear at the antenna connections. TechRepublic's teardown photos (http://content.techrepublic.com.com/2346...) make clear the only logic board connection at the sensitive gap is to the cellphone antenna. TechRepublic's photos don't show any detail for the upper gap's connections, though presumably the upper end of the Bluetooth etc. antenna connects to the logic board at the upper gap. This probably makes rewiring the ends of each antenna unworkable, since the only other possibility I can think of, moving the cellphone antenna's connection from the lefthand gap to the upper gap, would probably drastically negatively affect the cellphone antenna's performance. Moving the Bluetooth etc. antenna's connection from the top gap to the left-side gap, while leaving the cellphone antenna's connection at the left-side gap, would probably make the left-side gap even more sensitive, dropping even more cellphone signal when touched.
All this probably makes coating the sensitive antenna gap the next-best thing to do, short of putting the iPhone 4 into a case, which is even better, not just because it protects the phone, but because it eliminates hand contact with any part of the exposed metal antenna, resulting in even less signal drop than just coating the sensitive gap to prevent one's hand from touching it.
Is this a good question?
Why don't you try it?
by Majesty
Majesty: I would if I had an iPhone 4! Which I'd have if I could afford it. Until then, I'm currently using my old iPhone "2G", which is working fine for me.
by johnsawyercjs