iPhones Showing Too Many Bars?

The Apple PR Machine, on the iPhone 4 signal dropping thing:

We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.

This could explain why iPhone customers will drop calls (or not receive them) in places where their phones appear to have a strong signal. Whether or not this fixes all of the issues or not is yet to be seen, but at the very least, it should be interesting to see this reevaluated signal readings.

This is yet another step in Apple shifting all the blame for iPhone connectivity issues to AT&T, and off of their own shoulders.

We may all soon realize that AT&T’s coverage is in fact as bad we all all think that it is.