Good Luck Getting Your iPhone 4

[Townsend]

I would say that 30-40% of my calls are dropped. It truly awful. I miss Verizon if only for the better coverage.

The 4 has an antenna wrapped around it under the metal edge.  It's supposed to help significantly.

30 - 40% would tweak me.

The amount I use my phone to talk though... that would be about 4 dropped calls a month.

[nathanm]

iPhone 4 means nothing if the network drops calls like it does.

It's not really at&t's fault the iPhone has reception on par with a freebie LG phone.

[swake]

It's not really at&t's fault the iPhone has reception on par with a freebie LG phone.

My daughter has a touchscreen Samsung phone and her call coverage is very marginally better than our iPhones and her data speeds and coverage are a lot worse, though that may well mostly the phone itself.

[swake]

The 4 has an antenna wrapped around it under the metal edge.  It's supposed to help significantly.

30 - 40% would tweak me.

The amount I use my phone to talk though... that would be about 4 dropped calls a month.

30-40% is probably due to such a large percentage of my calls being between iPhones, so my personal drop rate might be somewhere around half that. Plus my coverage in my office is horrible because I am in the middle of a very large building. I may show 3-4 bars sitting at my desk, but that's a sham, probably 75% of my calls in my office are dropped.

[stageidea]

I thought this was appropriate from this weeks Oatmeal:
What it's like to own an Apple Product
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

[DolfanBob]

I thought this was appropriate from this weeks Oatmeal:
What it's like to own an Apple Product
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

Now thats funny. That is my boss to the tee. He is so wrapped up with his electronic toys, he is first in line at all the releases. New iPad. Had to have it ! New 3GiPad. Holy crap ! gotta run and get it. New Droid. Oh snap ! better get it.
Never seen anyone like that. But as the cartoon shows, he must not be alone. Makes no sense to me.

I had US Cellular for 3 years and the kid that I was talking to when I went to upgrade. Totally blew the deal buy not really offering me anything that was to my liking. So I was talked into the iPhone by guess who ? my boss. 3 months ago I just got the 3G because at the time 100 dollars beat 200 for the at the time 3GS.
In that time I have found out that US Cellular service as far as dropped calls far beats AT&T service. Dont know why but it does. And not being the game playing app adding nut most all of AT&T customers are, I feel I traded down while paying up.

[nathanm]

My daughter has a touchscreen Samsung phone and her call coverage is very marginally better than our iPhones and her data speeds and coverage are a lot worse, though that may well mostly the phone itself.

It is largely the phone. at&t's network isn't quite what it used to be (I do occasionally drop calls now, while two years ago it was actually surprising), thanks to all the new iPhones people have bought in the last couple of years, but I still find that my Nokias work far better than my SO's old Sony Ericsson.

at&t has this inexplicable habit of selling phones that have awful reception. It makes them look bad, so I don't know why they insist on doing that.

CDMA phones almost all use the same chipset and there's much less variation in antenna design (most of them have all the RF work done by Qualcomm and use one of Qualcomm's chipsets), so you don't see most of the low end phones causing trouble.

[Conan71]

I thought this was appropriate from this weeks Oatmeal:
What it's like to own an Apple Product
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

"Will gargle balls for money"

Holy smile, I just about peed my pants I was laughing so hard.  Great cartoon!

[Conan71]

It is largely the phone. at&t's network isn't quite what it used to be (I do occasionally drop calls now, while two years ago it was actually surprising), thanks to all the new iPhones people have bought in the last couple of years, but I still find that my Nokias work far better than my SO's old Sony Ericsson.

at&t has this inexplicable habit of selling phones that have awful reception. It makes them look bad, so I don't know why they insist on doing that.

CDMA phones almost all use the same chipset and there's much less variation in antenna design (most of them have all the RF work done by Qualcomm and use one of Qualcomm's chipsets), so you don't see most of the low end phones causing trouble.

This is interesting to hear.  I travel extensively between Tulsa and OKC on a weekly basis now and ride out in the country quite a bit on my road bike both places and I don't seem to have any worse reception issues than I ever did with one of my previous phones whether I'm in the city, on the turnpike or out in the country.  There's a dead spot in the middle of my office, but that's been the case for six years.

[Hoss]

This is interesting to hear.  I travel extensively between Tulsa and OKC on a weekly basis now and ride out in the country quite a bit on my road bike both places and I don't seem to have any worse reception issues than I ever did with one of my previous phones whether I'm in the city, on the turnpike or out in the country.  There's a dead spot in the middle of my office, but that's been the case for six years.

What was your previous phone Co..I saw you had an iPhone at our lunch; I currently carry the lowly Sony Ericcson 580i.  Today is my upgrade eligibility date.  I'm trying to decide if I want the 4, or if the 3GS will be better.

Of course, i'll have to call them.  They aren't taking upgrades online right now.  LOL.

[Conan71]

What was your previous phone Co..I saw you had an iPhone at our lunch; I currently carry the lowly Sony Ericcson 580i.  Today is my upgrade eligibility date.  I'm trying to decide if I want the 4, or if the 3GS will be better.

Of course, i'll have to call them.  They aren't taking upgrades online right now.  LOL.

My company has been using AT&T and it's predecessors since before I came on board in Oct. '04, I'm pretty sure.  Well, wait, we might have been on USC then changed to Cingular (AT&T).  Too many Marshalls since then.

[OpenYourEyesTulsa]

I rarely talk on my iPhone but I use it for everything else.  Can't wait for the new model to come out.  I have read that Apple is working on making the iPhone replace your keys and wallet.  Soon you will be able unlock your front door, start your car, and pay for groceries all from the iPhone.  Better not flush it down the toilet.

[nathanm]

This is interesting to hear.  I travel extensively between Tulsa and OKC on a weekly basis now and ride out in the country quite a bit on my road bike both places and I don't seem to have any worse reception issues than I ever did with one of my previous phones whether I'm in the city, on the turnpike or out in the country.  There's a dead spot in the middle of my office, but that's been the case for six years.

Most any phone will work reasonably well if the signal is good. It's only in the truly marginal situations that a better one makes a big difference. I used to live in what, for almost everyone, was a dead spot on at&t (Cingular, at the time). It always amazed me that I'd be able to make a call and even get reasonable data speeds while their phones were saying "no service."

I was exaggerating somewhat when I said the iPhone's reception is like a freebie LG. It's better than that, it's just not top notch, which is sad since everything else about the last couple have been top notch hardware-wise. I haven't used a 3GS, which supposedly brought some improvement over the 3G, but the 3G was just fair to middling. It was about on par with an older Nokia I once had that I thought didn't have great reception but still worked where I was living at the time.

If you're on at&t, and you want a backup phone, buy whatever cheapie Nokia candybar they're selling. Aside from a rare few, they have the best reception available in a handheld GSM phone. If you really want an emergency phone, find a GSM bag phone with both 850 and 1900MHz. Needless to say, a long whip is better even than the crazy antennas they use in the new handhelds.

[TheTed]

I rarely talk on the cell phone, either. Too bad you can't buy an iPhone for a reasonable price without a voice plan.

That alone has pushed me to Sprint, where I can get a $30/month unlimited data/text plan that costs like 20cents a minute for the rare instances I need to make a voice call. The whole cell phone pricing schemes are pretty ridiculous, especially when you look at one of those studies that examines how much the average user is really paying per minute. The cheapest iPhone plan is like $70/month, isn't it?

[custosnox]

Soon you will be able unlock your front door, start your car, and pay for groceries all from the iPhone.  

I think with the right apps, you can do all of that (provided it has an rf transmitter).  Just a little bit more and the iphones will start writting their own apps and take over the world.

I still haven't found a reason to stop using cricket.  For the amount of time I spend on the phone, I would be spending a lot more through one of the other companies, and I get unlimited text (I am at about 1000 of those a month, down a bit since I stopped skirt chasing) and unlimited data for web, email and pic text.  If I went out of market more (I was really surprised how big the market was last time I looked, they have one hell of a "map" now), I could see changing carriers, however I never exceed my 100 minutes of roaming so I really don't see the point.  And to add to it, my dropped call rate is less then 5%.  However, one of these days I really need to get around to hacking a better phone to work on cricket, though my current blackberryisc motorola is great.