It’s come to light that the iPhone 4 — at least some of them — have a nasty habit of dropping calls if a user’s hand is on the lower-left edge of the phone, where the left and bottom portions of the steel band that run around the phone — and house the antennas — meet each other.
Apple, via Engadget:
Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.
Here’s Steve Jobs’ response to a new iPhone 4 owner, as shared with Mac Rumors:
Non issue. Just avoid holding it in that way.
I’m sure this isn’t the last thing we’ll hear about this, even though there is some evidence that older iPhones display the same issue. Even the Nexus One shows a drop in signal strength when picked up.