On Sun, 02 Mar 2014 03:24:41 -0500, nospam <nos...@nospam.invalid>
wrote:
>changewave is in the business of surveys. they ask a statistically
>valid sample. the majority (by a lot) didn't have a problem.
>
>> I'm in the computer repair biz
>> and find Apple users rarely admit they have problems unless they are
>> totally desperate. Instead of asking if they had "serious" problems,
>> I wonder how the survey would look if they asked "Have you learned to
>> tolerate the antenna grip problems"?
>
>in fact, they did ask about that, and not that many said it was
>serious. i need to find the actual survey though for specifics.
<
http://investorplace.com/2010/08/apple-inc-iphone-4-survey-att-verizon/>
See the red bar graph showing iPhone 4 dislikes. 24% listed "antenna
issues" as what they "most dislike" about the iPhone 4. What someone
dislikes the most is a great way of reducing the incidence of lesser
complaints. For example, users were given a choice of "most dislike"
of requiring using the AT&T network, and coverage, speed, and of the
quality of the AT&T network. The result was 27% and 24% respectively.
What this did was effectively split the complaints about AT&T roughly
in half. If they had only offered AT&T complaints as a single "most
dislike" choice, the combined total of 51% would have indicated that
at least half the users were not thrilled with AT&T. Similarly, the
participants were given the choice of "dropped calls" and "antenna
issues" again effectively splitting the complaints. If I assume that
all dropped calls were precipitated by the antenna problem (not system
overload), then at least 47% were having problems. If they had asked
"Which of the following do you dislike about the iPhone and about
AT&T. Pick all that apply", it would have been a very different
survey.
Of course, there's something wrong with the numbers anyway, as the
total of the percentages adds up to 129% instead of 100%.
The article claims:
To gauge the impact of the antenna obstruction issue, we
asked iPhone 4 owners to tell us how big of a problem it
was for them. Nearly two-thirds reported they Haven’t
Experienced Any Problem and another 14% reported it
Wasn’t Much of a Problem. However one-in-five did report
it was Somewhat of a Problem (14%) or a Very Big Problem (7%).
So, 14+14+7 = 35% of the users were having a problem. I guess Apple
has such a large customer base, that it can afford to ignore 1/3 of
it's early adopters.
Full disclosures. I used to craft such surveys in the late 1980's but
haven't done much since then. I would be interested in seeing the
original survey. They usually charge for reports:
<
http://changewaveresearch.com>
>if it isn't affecting anyone, then how is it even a problem?
For every customer that actually calls tech support with a real
problem, it can be assumed that there is a fairly large number of
users that simply didn't bother to call. I've worked on a few
products that had this problem. We didn't know that something was
wrong until one customer made considerable noise at a trade show,
followed by plenty of "me too" complaints. Kinda like priming the
pump. Unfortunately, it's quite common to run a business these days
on the basis of no complaint = no problem. The result is that some
brilliant manager decides that it's easier to discourage complainers
than it is to fix the product. I wrote this about 20 years ago in
honor of such brilliance:
<
http://members.cruzio.com/~jeffl/poetry/support.htm>
More examples of products that don't work, and few or nobody
complains:
<
http://www.designnews.com/archives.asp?section_id=1367&dfpPParams=bid_240&dfpLayout=siteInfo>
>interesting story, but i don't know what that has to do with anything.
It demonstrates that customer complaints and product defects are not
directly connected. It is quite possible to have a problem, and
nobody complain, as I found out. I can supply other examples of this
if you are not convinced.
>apple has likely sold at least 100 million iphone 4 over the past 3+
>years (they don't give specific model breakdowns).
>they sold 51 million iphones last quarter *alone*.
>the reality is that most users did not find it to be a problem. at all.
True. iPhones are not the only products that sell well but have
defects. I see them all the time in the computer biz. For example,
Dell was (allegedly) knowingly selling computers that had defective
electrolytic capacitors known to bulge, leak, and fail in a fairly
short time. Various laptop vendors did much the same with lousy BGA
soldering (and blamed on bad Nvidia chips). They sold quite nicely,
even during the various class action suits and settlements which
provided the only way consumers even knew that there was a problem.
Perception is everything, and the perception of Apple products is
truly impressive.
>however, the number is never going to be zero. if you touch the
>antenna, the signal strength will drop, just like any phone.
They drop by differing amounts, measured in dB. Did you measure the
signal levels as I suggested in my previous message? I have a mess of
phones in the office that I can measure on Monday or Tues. If you
need help getting into the test mode:
<
http://www.wilsonelectronics.com/uploads/docs/FieldTestModes06142010%20wilson004.pdf>
>people like to complain.
Some people do, but most don't. They simply don't consider the effort
necessary to file a proper complaint worthwhile. Also, many companies
have no mechanism for complaints. For example, about 4(?) years ago,
I had a firmware update failure that trashed an Apple aluminum
Bluetooth keyboard. The installer would not let me go back a version,
not let me reinstall, and there was no later version. I asked for
help on various forums and to various email addresses with little
result. When I changed my questions to complaints, my postings were
deleted from the Apple forum and my account locked.
>> >other phones have the same issue, if not more so:
>> ><
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zft3-Lwh2bo>
>> ><
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4zbQ3f7H0U>
>>
>> I find it interesting that you picked two videos that measure signal
>> strength in "bars". Both phones have pages that show signal strength
>> in -dBm. All I want to know is how many dB does the signal level drop
>> when the phone is badly gripped.
>
>i picked a couple of videos that show the effect of 'holding it wrong'.
I saw little in the way of an effect except to see 1 or 2 bars go to
zero. No dropped calls. I have several phones that will successfully
make calls with no bars showing. I want to see the change in signal
level in dBm before and after.
>i have a flip phone where the instructions say how to hold it, and if i
>hold it the way it says not to, the signal strength drops.
It's still not sinking in. Go to:
<
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/cellular/cell-test.htm>
All the ordinary cell phones lost signal when the antenna was covered.
Most lost 5 to 8 dB in signal, which is considerable, but not fatal in
moderate signal areas. The worst was 12dB. However, the iPhone 4
lost between 19.8dB and 24.6dB which is enormous, huge, monstrous, and
full able to create a dropout. When I did the tests, we didn't have
the iPhone 4 rubber protectors available, but I can test those when I
have time and add them to the table.
To put the numbers in perspective 5 to 8dB is about 3.2 to 6.3 times.
The iPhone 4 19.8dB to 24.6dB is 95.5 to 288 times drop in signal.
That's like trying to operate with 1/100 to 1/200 of the normal signal
level.
Now do you understand the problem?