Do Antenna Issues Make the iPhone 4 a Bad Apple?

Apple’s dedication to technological design has rarely been questioned, but the iPhone 4’s reported antenna issues are forcing many to reconsider. Being a community that discusses and promotes good design, we felt it would be interesting to analyze the “Antennagate” issue and how Apple has been handling it. Many blogs and news sites have approached the situation from a marketing/pr perspective but few have considered the implications of this problem from a purely design-based angle. We’d like to give you our thoughts and hope you’ll share some of yours in return…

Graph showing the iPhone 4's initial sale numbers compared to other recent tech releases via IT Pro Portal

In the documentary film Objectified, industrial designer Dieter Rams states that very few companies “take design seriously.” Rams continues by saying that Apple, at the moment, is that company. After watching Steve Jobs or Jonathan Ives speak about their products it is clear they are impassioned by what they do. Consequently, Apple has been consistently leading the way in consumer electronics with every product they make. After selling 1.7 million devices within 3 days, Jobs was happy to claim that the iPhone 4 was the most successful product launch in Apple’s history. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to savor that moment for too long.

The Issue:
Within days of its release, the world quickly began to publicize the effect of the “death grip”. Bridging the external antenna together with your hand can cause the phone to drastically loose reception. *Note that despite the widespread backlash, not all users are reporting this issue. Not surprisingly, the Internet’s collective response came swiftly. There were numerous parodies, videos, and hacks to fix the problem. A few lawsuits have even been filed against Apple claiming that the design is faulty.

The exposed metal band which, when touched, reduces signal strength in some iPhones.

The Response:
After an initial, rash email sent by Jobs instructing a concerned owner to “just don’t hold it that way” Apple began to realize the problem was not going to just disappear. They released an official statement and later organized a press conference as well as developed a webpage dedicated entirely to their explanation of the iPhone 4’s antenna issue (as well as attempt to share the blame with other smartphones). In the press conference Jobs is understandably frustrated and visibly tired. For the most part he appears empathetic (but not necessarily apologetic) as he attempts to clearly explain the reasoning for the antenna issue, stating it is simply a “fact of life” for any mobile phone user.

Our Opinion:
So what does this all mean? Do we buy the “fact of life argument?” Well, we understand that antenna attenuation is a problematic engineering feat that must be met. Spencer Webb does an excellent job of explaining the difficulties of this challenge. But to begin our argument, we’d like to refer back to Dieter Rams (a man Jonathan Ives has clearly been inspired by). Rams developed a simple “10 Principles of Good Design”. In it, he claims, “Good design is consequent to the last detail”. Apple’s designers unfortunately failed in this regard. A user should be able to hold a mobile phone in a normal fashion (especially for a left handed person) without causing it to loose functionality. It is the challenge of the engineers and designers to develop a way that a user’s normal experience with the phone is not inhibited by the design (or lack there of). This isn’t an impossible task. They did it with the previous iPhone generations. The problem is the new, external antenna technology which is admittedly very impressive and comes with a lot of benefits; however, those benefits don’t outweigh the functionality issues they’re causing. Apple needs to find a way to implement the external antenna system without causing such a drastic loss in signal strength. Until they do, it simply should not have been included in their phones. Apple does a great job of making intuitive design — their software and devices are often easy to learn and experience. Yet Apple seemed genuinely surprised when people were upset that the common task of holding their phone was causing signal loss.

New Motorola ad attempting to capitalize from the antenna backlash.

Apple’s response was predictable. They offered a full refund with the restocking fee waved for unsatisfied customers. Additionally, they’ve established a case program which allows every iPhone 4 customer to select a case that will be mailed to them for free. We like to think of this as the “IKEA model” where it now takes more than one package in order for an item to achieve full functionality. Although the case may alleviate the antenna issues, it does not excuse the phone's flaw.

Evaluating the design of the iPhone 4 isn’t an easy process. In fact, it made us truly question what design is and what it should do. Can we excuse a major flaw when there are so many other incredible things the phone can do? Unfortunately we have to answer "no." The iPhone 4 contains many technological and engineering achievements and it continues Apple's legacy of pushing the limits of current technology and consumer expectations. The failure lies within the decrease of functionality when a user interacts with the phone on a very predictable, basic level. This positive/negative analysis might seem a bit paradoxical, however, Consumer Reports had a similar response to the iPhone 4 conundrum. They awarded the iPhone 4 the highest ratings of any smartphone on the market, yet they could not recommend it due to the antenna issue.

User holding the iPhone 4 in the "death grip". Image courtesy Georg Holzer.

In Conclusion:
Design is challenging and Apple isn't perfect. It's important to recognize failures in order to move forward. Overall, Apple has been doing a commendable job approaching this quite difficult situation. We have full confidence they will bounce back from this with a revised iPhone design and other great performing products. And quite frankly we're happy to see that even Apple, a company which people frequently accuse of having a religious following, isn't above criticism from their consumers. Because the best mistakes are ones we can learn from.

Do you have an opinion on the “Antennagate” issue? Share it with us below — we'd love to discuss it further.

Comments (11)

Much ado about nothing.

All the telephones have drops. We expect the iPhone to be perfect and it's not possible, nothing can be absolutely perfect. Anyway: It works a hundred times better than any other phone, anyway.

We were stuck in SF the other day, trying to find our way through 511.org. Four telephones. My Blackberry and my friend's litteraly frose one after another after 15 minutes of bad customer experience. We were lucky one of us had an iphone. It took her 2 minutes to get the information we never got in 15.

It's easy to go after a super popular product and criticize it, but I think the apple team made a pretty good job at designing the iPhone. The only reason I don't own one is because the AT&T coverage is not good where I live...I might make the jump anyway.

Its been reported that other countries don't have this problem (or its even less of an issue than it is in the US). Unless they suddenly changed the antenna design, it says to me that the foreign networks are a lot stronger than AT&T's.

Shocker, I know.

del4yo: I agree with you on every point. I think the iPhone 4 is the best phone on the market — I love mine.

SoItsComeToThis: That is interesting. I haven't read any of those reports. If you could post some links I would like to read them. I completely agree that AT&T has been negatively affecting the iPhone's performance since day one (all you have to do is look to the commenter above you to see one lost customer). I cannot wait till more carrier options are available.

Lastly, I was watching the iPad video on Apple's site tonight and heard Ives say something which I found to be very interesting and directly applicable to this discussion. This is his direct quote taken from 1:04 in the video seen here: http://www.apple.com/ipad/
"...there isn't even a single orientation. There is no up, there is no down. There is no right or wrong way of holding it. I don't have to change myself to fit the product — it fits me."

This kind of design integration is what makes the iPad so ingenious. And clearly Ives recognizes that. It's a shame the same couldn't be said for the iPhone 4.

Just bought my iPhone 4 today. No problems with it whatsoever. I cannot replicate the "death grip"

I've now talked to over 20 people who have an iPhone 4 here in San Francisco. Not one of them has been bothered by reception issues. Most of them owned an iPhone prior to getting an iPhone 4, and all of them said the reception was at least as good or better and they'd had fewer dropped calls.

A total non-issue, and another made-up media controversy.

i've met several iPhone 4 owners in Michigan who have no problem with the phone naked or cased.

it's a shame too. noone is talking about the retina display, facetime, better battery life, or better reception. all they discuss is an overblown issue. maybe when we see the sales stats in a few more months people will realize how much everyone over reacted.

I know no one else who owns an iPhone 4 except for me and I do experience the problem (but as I said, use a case and never notice it).

There are various polls around the internet fetching similar results to this one:
http://www.cultofmac.com/is-iphone-4-death-grip-a-non-issue-poll/50538

But by the very nature of the internet, you're going to get very polarizing opinions. Generally, it's the people who feel very strongly about the issue that are going to come here to talk about it.

I would venture a guess that out of all iPhone 4 users, the figure of people who are experiencing the problem are maybe somewhere around 30-40%. But even if it was less than that and was more like 25%, that is still a huge number of people out of the millions who have purchased it.

Good design isn't about making something that will be good for most of its users. You need to design with everyone in mind and not just the majority.

The comments above are exactly why apple can do what it did with the iPhone 4, which is create a flawed design. And then people think it's commendable when they provide a fix, for something they broke in the first place? And do they really have to post antenna videos of other phones on the market? what is the point of that exactly? to show that it's ok for apple to have a flawed design because they can replicate the issue on a few other devices?

And of course this is the prime focus of the iPhone 4 news, because nothing else was revolutionary about the new phone. The display is sharp, but also uses more power compared to AMOLED screens. Can we really call it improvement now when we sacrifice efficiency? I can't really comment on FaceTime, because it's not something I understand/care for, but other phones had the same feature before, so again, not all that exciting.

Brand loyalty creates blindness in the consumers. There are many products I really enjoy, but why defend a company that you have no ties to, unless you feel that your items are an extension of who you are, and by relation, the company is an extension of everything you believe in. Make apple work harder, don't accept their mistakes, because you'll only end up with poor results.

All said, i think apple got too cocky (or maybe they just decided that they wanted form to lead function, as opposed to following it), and unfortunately, there are too many fans that accept it, so apple doesn't need to work harder to impress, because the customers will just take it, as we see here.

Is it good design to sacrifice functionality for aesthetics? Of course not. I initially ruled out the iPhone 4 because of this issue but when I tested out other phones, I wasn't impressed with the alternatives. Most android phones were too big or were too short on battery life. So I reconsidered the iPhone with the antenna flaw and tested the deathgrip, which I couldn't reproduce. Considering that I was going to use a case anyways, I eventually decided to go with the iPhone 4. Is it perfect? Probably not but it's still one of the best phones on the market right now.

As a product designer myself, I find 2 things irritating about this entire situation. 1) Apple, a company whose design I keep in high regard, made a major flub here. Even if the internet exaggerates the number of issues, it's still bigger than it should be. If enough people can commiserate about this issue that it gets media attention, it's too big, and should have been addressed prior to release. 2) Apple should have put on their big boy pants and said we screwed up the design, we are working to fix it, instead of all the excuses they gave to downplay it. All designers make mistakes, even the best ones. Telling us they got very few technical support calls tells us nothing, particularly when about an issue that anyone can easily Google and find out there is no fix. I wouldn't wait an hour at the genius bar to find out an issue that 130 blogs already told me about. Plus, showing a large hand squeezing other phones unreasonably hard does not compare to bridging a mm's wide black line with a single finger. Yes, if you cover any antennae with your hand completely you lose reception, that is why most phones have their placement in areas not typically completely covered by hands. I'm deeply disappointed in Apple. I've loved their designs for years, but have suspected for the past few that they may be heading towards form before function. While their function may be acceptable, their form is better, and that's a problem.

I can't replicate the 'problem' with my iPhone 4. In fact, I think the whole thing is a sham. Most of the people complaining about the iPhone 4's antenna don't even have an iPhone 4.