In an nutshell, when touching the left-bottom of the phone, your hand can bridge the gap between the two antennas. When this happens, there’s a loss of signal. This can lead to dropped calls, slow data, etc…

There are actually two issues here – one hardware, one software. This seems to be rather hard for the mass media to grasp, so I’m going to try to explain it here.

First, the software issue. The iPhone 4, as shipped, has a software flaw that causes it to display more bars of signal than it should. This gives a false sense of how “good” your signal is in a given area. There’s a great rundown on page two of AnandTech’s review:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2

Basically there’s a 22dB gap between 0 bars (no signal) and 5 bars (full signal), but the fifth bar spans 40dB. Signal loss from holding the phone normally is ~19dB, or nearly the entire span between 0-5. The practical take from this is that holding the phone normally *completely* destroys the signal, bringing it from 4-5 bars to nearly none – looking like it’s lost 80% or more, when in fact it’s lost around 30%.

Yesterday’s iOS4.01 update changes the way the signal bars correlate to the actual strength of the signal. Youc an see the comparison here:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3821/iphone-4-redux-analyzing-apples-ios-41-signal-fix

The span between 1-5 is now 45dB rather than 20, and bar 5 now spans 25dB rather than 40. This is a bit more accurate scale-wise.

Ifyou were previously seeing 5 bars, but were on the weaker side of that, you were at ~-91dB. Now `91dB will get you 3 bars. Dropping 19dB to -110dB puts you at 1 bar, the same as before. However, the take from this is that you dropped 2 bars (40%), not 4 (80%), which is much closer to the truth.

As another example, if you have 5 bars now, and you drop 19dB, you’ll go down to 3 bars, not 1.

Mind you, this doesn’t change signal strength, just how it’s reported. It’s more accurate, and should give you a better idea of how good your actual signal is than before. Holding the phone without a case still drops more signal than competing phones, and it’s still possible to lose signal entirely in areas with weaker signal strength. However, you should now have a better idea of where the signal strength isn’t so good.

OK, so that’s the software issue. Now for the hardware one.

Touching an antenna with something conductive causes attenuation, which commonly results in a loss of signal strength. This happens to a degree with every antenna. Holding a cellphone essentially wraps it in conductive meat. Holding any cellphone will attenuate the antenna to some degree.

The iPhone 4′s antenna is exposed, rather than enclosed within the plastic shell. This allows the antenna to get *better* reception, most of the time. However, it also exposes the antenna to your sweaty, conductive, meaty palms.

That’s why you see the attenuation problems with the iPhone 4 moreso than with other phones.

So, how do youfix it? Well, you cna take the reported advice from Steve Jobs, and just “hold it differently”. THat doesn’t really solve the problem, as most of us are fairly trained in how to hold a phone to our ear, and changing that habit isn’t going to come easy.

You can also put something non-conductive between your hand and the antenna, such as a case. As you can see in Anand’s review linked above, a case brings the attenuation down to approximately the same level as seen in competing phones.

This appears to be Apple’s solution as well. For the first time, Apple offers a “case” for the iPhone – the “bumper”. Essentially a rubber and plastic band that wraps around the edges of the phone – right over the antenna. Hmm…

It also costs $30, which seems a bit much for a band of rubber and plastic. Not to mention a rather unreasonable additional expense for the customer, to fix a hardware design issue.

(Note that $30 is about the average price for an iPhone case at retail – and there are other options available from third parties that provide more robust protection for the glass back of the iPhone 4 for the same price.)

Most folks I know that have iPhones have them in a case of some sort. People like to feel that their expensive phone investmnt is protected. The notion of buying a case itself seems not to be much of a problem. The problem comes when the case is required to use the phone, because the phone itself has an issue.

We don’t know exactly how Apple’s planning on dealing with this. Originally they seemed to take the stance that the phone was fine, and that if you were having reception problems, you needed to buy a case. That changed when Consumer Reports decided not to recommend the iPhone 4 due to the conflated hardware/software reception issue. Now Apple has a press conference slated for later today, with the iPhone 4 being the subject.

What’s the overall outcome of the fixes so far?

Changing the signal display to be more linear, and thus more in line with what the bars appear to represent puts more of an onus on AT&T.

Back when iOS 2.1 (then called iPhoneOS) was released, they changed the signal display as well, to make the signal appear to be better. At that time, AT&T was taking a lot of heat about how bad their network was, and how shoddy most folks’ reception was. The change didn’t really quiet this down, but it diverted the discussion away from signal on the phones and more into dropped calls and poor connection speeds – which some blamed on the iPhone hardware itself, rather than AT&T. After all, they had 5 bars, and thus “full signal”, so it must be the phone, right?

The 4.01 change reverses that. Now folks will get a more accurate indicator of exactly how poor AT&Ts service really is in their area. Expect backlash against AT&T, who have profited greatly on the iPhone, yet have consistantly blamed iPhones for all of their problems, rather than growing their network capacity to deal with the increased demand.

AT&T will need to, as is said, “put up or shut up”.

As for the hardware, some are reporting that “fixed” phones are starting to appear as replacements for returned phones. There’s no cosmetic change, so the “fix” is most likely a clear non-conductive coating on the antennas. This would be in line with other silent, invisible fixes Apple’s done in the past.

However, the problem has now been made public, so Apple’s dealing with it in the public forum as well. They also have to deal with the backlash from the mainstream media that thinks the software fix was supposed to fix the hardware issue. I expect that to be addressed during today’s press conference. I also expect two other things to be announced:

* I’m predicting Apple will offer free bumpers to all iPhone 4 owners. In quantity, these things can’t cost more than a buck or two to produce, and this would be a cheap way to get a public fix out there.

* I’m also predicting Apple will extend the return/replacement period for a bit, and allow pretty much anyone to go swap their iPhone 4 for a new one. This will get the “fixed” phones in the hands of the loudest complainers.

* I’m predicting they *won’t* do a full recall on the iPhone 4. That would be costly, and a huge PR hit. Apple can, and I think will do better than that.

As for me, if they announce free bumpers, I’ll go pick one up. I have a more robust case already, but the bumper will be OK as a backup. If they announce fixed phones, and free swaps, I’ll certianly go swap my phone out, after securely wiping it.

This article, which came in the wake of an experiment by Ars, blocking content from those who run ad blocking software, essentially said “If you’re blocking our ads, whitelist us, subscribe, or don’t come here”.

The anti-user stance continued in the comments, which at this time number more than 1700. Some users did in fact whitelist Ars. Some attempted to explain why they block ads, and were summarily dismissed by Ars staff, regardless of their reasons.

Techdirt posted a rebuttal Monday, entitled “Don’t Blame Your Community. Ad Blocking Is Not Killing Any Sites“. Their take is that if your community is blocking your ads, and you can’t handle it, find another business model that isn’t based on annoying your users.

I generally have to take Techdirt’s side on this one.

Ars isn’t unique in its news offerings. There are plenty of sites out there more that cover the same topics. If Ars disappeared tomorrow, the news would still be covered, and opinions would still be shared.

Ars needs to find another way, if they want to succeed. Blocking users who value their privacy and security, and aren’t willing to sell out for Ars’ benefit is going to cost them dearly. Without users, after all, there’s noone to sell out to advertisers (and that’s essentially what ad-supported sites do, after all). Being confrontational with their users isn’t going to get them anywhere. They need to listen to the concerns of their users and address them – with more than just a snide dismissal.

Apparently this keylogger watches for you to log in to WoW or the World of Warcraft website, and rather than passing your credentials to Blizzard, instead passes them to a third party. They then log in to your account within the 30 seconds the Authenticator code is valid, and commence the usual account strippage.

Quote from Blizzard’s Kropacius:

“After looking into this, it has been escalated, but it is a Man in the Middle attack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack

This is still perpetrated by key loggers, and no method is always 100% secure.”

For now, Mac users are unaffected. From WoW.com’s article:

“This is a PC only attack, at the moment. Mac users are immune to this particular virus, however they are not immune in general. Mac users must practice the same security methods as PC users.”

Always good advice to follow basic safe-browsing procedures, no matter what platform you’re on. Strong passwords, ad/script blocking software, a good hardware firewall, and common sense are your best defense against all these sorts of threats.

Google did the right thing – right? Wrong, says an Italian court, which charged and convicted three Google employees (four were charged) of “failure to comply with Italian privacy code”, with six-month suspended jail sentences.

This is completely stupid and ridiculous, particularly considering, as Google’s blog entry points out:

“To be clear, none of the four Googlers charged had anything to do with this video. They did not appear in it, film it, upload it or review it. None of them know the people involved or were even aware of the video’s existence until after it was removed.”

Google plans on appealing the convictions, but the fact this even came up is chilling. It sets a precedent that hosting providers are criminally liable for user-generated content. Taken to the most onerous conclusion, it would effectively ban user-generated content altogether, as no company would take the risk of being taken to court over content they had no control over.

This would mean the death of sites like YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, WordPress, Tumblr, Twitter, and countless others. Effectively the death of the web as we know it, which was built on, and continues to thrive on, user-generated content.

Would someone in Italy please smack some sense into your laywers and judges? Please? Thanks.

As far as OSX goes, everything works great.

The new annoyance came when attempting to setup dual-booting. For some reason I don’t entirely understand, my iMac refuses to boot from any Windows installation disc. The initial Bootcamp setup works fine – resizing the HFS+ partition, creating the partition for WIndows to be installed to, and rebooting. No problems.

Insert the WIndows disc, the machine boots, and I’m left at a black text-mode screen, with a flashing cursor in the upper left. I’ve let it sit for several hours here with no change, so it’s not just “going slow” through the installer.

I’ve tried several Windows CDs, XP SP2, XP SP3, Vista32, Vista64, Win7 RC, Win7 32, Win7 64 – all produce exactly the same behavior.

Over on the Apple discussion boards, other folks have run into this problem as well. Some had success after zapping PRAM several times at various stages of the process. Others reported success after thoroughly wiping the drive, or removing all hardware except a keyboard and mouse. None of these things have worked for me.

So, I’ve pretty much given up for the moment, and just run my iMac in OSX. It means a bit less gaming on the iMac – and thus a bit more on the 360/PS3. Fine by me for now since WoW runs great on OSX, and there’s several good games out currently for the consoles that I’ve been itching to play.

Regardless, it’s a problem I’d *really* like to get fixed soon. Apple of course provides no support for Bootcamp beyond providing the partitioner and Windows drivers, so it’s not something I can drop in their hands. It feels like some sort of BIOS/firmware issue – but of course there’s no downloadable firmware available for my particular model of iMac.

Still searching…

As it stands, if the internal disk in an iMac goes (and it will…), and you’re under Applecare, there’s a good chance you’ll be without the machine for at least a week.

I’ve read the disassembly guides, and I’ve done complex teardowns before. This one honestly isn’t too bad. I have a compatible (identical, actually) drive I’m currently booting in an external enclosure. I have the tools necessary to get it open. , The entire process would probably take me a half hour. A little longer if I’m *really* being careful.

However, Apple Support can’t give me a straight answer as to whether doing so (as it involves opening the machine) would void the remaining two years of Applecare on the entire machine. The new drive I could understand not being covered – that’s perfectly reasonable – but to lose coverage on the LCD, PSU, or motherboard?

The only “safe” option to preserve the warranty is to hand the machine off to Apple for however long they feel necessary to perform the drive replacement. Logic board replacement was a week. If they want that long for a HDD, it would seem fairly excessive to me.

This entire scenario would be unnecessary had Apple recognized that replacing the HDD is something that’s bound to be required, and somehting the end-user should be able to do easily. Just put it under an access panel, and be done with it.

They’ve always done something…weird…to scrolling. I’m not really sure how to describe it – it’s almost like you’re scrolling in jello – like there’s a bit of lag between when you move the wheel and when the page actually scrolls. And when it does scroll, it either scrolls a little further than you expected, or a little less.

The movement of the mouse feels similar, although the effect is much less pronounced.

Neither of these issues affects the mouse until you install Logitech’s drivers. Under the stock drivers, the mouse “feels” just fine. You just can’t map all of the buttons, and can’t configure the “microgear” scroll wheel to do anything but switch back and forth from free-wheel mode.

It’s been a pain, but I’ve been managing. Until now.

I was alerted to a third party driver called “SteerMouse“. I believe the language that was used was:

“It makes the MX Revolution work like it should – this is what Logitech’s Control Center should be.”

That’s high praise. I decided to check it out.

Holy crap. They’re right. It works perfectly. There’s no lag. Scrolling feels right. The scrollwheel not only functions as the middle mouse button (a big deal for us former linux geeks), but auto-switches to free-wheel mode when you give it a hard flick.

That little tiny button just over the scroll wheel? It’s mappable. As are all of the buttons. Every single one.

It’s like using a completely different mouse. One that’s worth the price I paid. One that works the way it said it would on the box.

The UI is a little rough, but certainly usable. To see which logical button a physical button maps to, you hover over the big mouse graphic and press it. The entry for the button gets highlighted, and you choose what you want it to do.

The other tabs allow you to customize how the scroll wheel works (“Acceleration scroll” seems to be the one to use with the MX to make the free-wheel-on-demand work), how tilt-scrolling works, and whether you want the cursor to auto-move to the default button in dialog boxes (I find this annoying, so I turned it off).

I’m so impressed, I’m going to add my own quotable soundbyte:

SteerMouse makes the MX Revolution work as advertised under Mac OSX.

Logitech needs to hire these people.

Yesterday, Apple announced the iPhone 3GS – essentially a hardware speed-boost to last year’s iPhone 3G. More memory, faster processor, better battery life, better camera, video, digital compass, etc… Overall a damn nice looking piece of kit, and a decent, if incremental, upgrade to the existing iPhone 3G.

Also announced was iPhone OS 3.0 – with such features as tethering (IE: using your phone’s ‘net connection to give your computer ‘net access via USB or bluetooth), MMS messaging (multimedia), and more.

AT&T won’t be supporting MMS at launch. Why not? Because they need to manually remove a *block* they put in place to prevent folks who got early copies of 3.0 from using it. That’s right – they intentionally crippled MMS for beta users, and now *all* users have to wait until they get around to re-enabling it.

AT&T was also not amongst the list of carriers supporting tethering (a feature I would get a bit of use out of). It’s been rumored that they will eventually support tethering, but may charge $70/month for it. That’s of course on top of the normal data plan, and the SMS plan, and nearly doubles the monthly price for folks who want to use it. Can you say “gouge”? I knew you could.

Additionally, unlike last year’s iPhone 3G launch, owners of last year’s model won’t be getting the announced price. Instead, an “early upgrade” (which includes a 2-year contract extension) will cost iPhone 3G users $399 for the 16GB model – double the price for new subscribers. If you’re unlucky enough not to qualify for an “early upgrade”, AT&T will charge you $599 for the same phone.

All of this is due to subsidies. The original iPhone wasn’t subsidized at all. The 3G was. So, AT&T’s subsidized phone policy comes into play, which only allows the full discount after 18 months. For example, based on my AT&T account’s page, they will declare me “eligible” for full upgrade pricing ($199) in December. That’s 6 months into the 3GS’ release – or in terms of a yearly hardware cycle, half it’s lifespan. And, were I to upgrade then, I would need to completely miss next year’s hardware upgrade, as I wouldn’t “qualify” for another full year.

What’s even more telling is that cancelling your account and eating the early termination fee ($130), then purchasing an iPhone 3GS as a now-new-customer is *cheaper* by about $70 for existing iPhone 3G owners.

This. Is. Stupid.

AT&T’s 18-month “upgrade” eligibility terms simply don’t mesh with Apple’s yearly hardware refreshes. It’s the flagship phone in AT&T’s fleet, and they’re treating customers like dirt. They’re costing Apple money, in the form of folks like me, who would have considered an upgrade, but now won’t due to AT&T’s terms.

It’s also been rumored that AT&T is right now in negotiations to extend its exclusivity agreement on the iPhone, which ends next year. I can’t imagine that making their existing customers upset is helping their position much.

Apple’s put out the goods. AT&T is failing them. It’s time for Apple to jump ship and find a new partner. In all actuality, finding 2-3 partners would be better. Competition tends to keep companies honest, and puts providing *service* to *customers* at the forefront. That’s likely what needs to happen to pull AT&Ts head out of its behind.

In short – why I won’t be upgrading:

• AT&T won’t support tethering, and may charge outrageous fees for it once they do get around to it
• AT&T won’t support MMS (until they get around to it)
• AT&T treats existing customers like dirt, makes it more affordable to stop being a customer, eat an early termination fee, then re-sign than to simply re-sign.
• Current experience with AT&T’s coverage, particularly 3G, is spotty at best, fails at worst.
• AT&T still charges me double to text my wife, who is on the same family plan. Calling her is free, texting costs 2 texts per message – one for me sending, the other for her receiving.

You’ll note nothing in there deals with Apple’s hardware. While there are things I’d like to have seen (forward-facing camera for video-calling, 4MP or better camera, etc…), it’s a solid upgrade all around, and one I’d likely have been willing to pay for, had AT&T not killed my interest by choosing not to support features I’d use, crippling others, and punishing me because I chose to buy their upgrade last year.

At this point, I’ll wait out this next year (as well as my contract), and perhaps jump ship to a competitor when the exclusivity runs out. I hear Verizon’s coverage around here is pretty good, and their 3G works well. I bet they’ll be willing to cut me a deal too.

But we had Wintergrasp, so we figured we’d take a look at the new boss – Emalon the Stone Watcher.

Emalon is located in the same instance as Archavon. At the circular room, there’s now a right-hand wing available. At the end, beyond a couple of trash mobs is the boss. Once again like Archavon, getting there is straightforward.

The fight requires two tanks. One tanks Emalon near the rear wall, and the other takes the four adds up the stairs. Two healers keep the two tanks up. There’s no raid damage to speak of, assuming folks pay attention.

And that’s the crux of the fight – paying attention.

Emalon himself has a lightning nova, similar to Loken in Halls of Lightning. Melee will want to run out of it. He also has a chain lightning, so ranged will need to spread out to avoid damage.

As for the adds, that’s where the gadget for this fight lies. Every 30 seconds, Emalon will “charge” an add. Once the charge is up, DPS has 10 seconds to down the add, or the resulting explosion will wipe the raid. In 10-man, the adds have ~200k HP.

The key lies in locating the charged add quickly. The longer it takes your DPS to focus, the harder this boss will be. On average it took us 2-4 seconds to get focused. The times we got it in 2, we were fine. The times it took us 4 seconds, we wiped. Simple as that.

Whereas Archavon had a tank switch, and was essentially a DPS race, this one is all about DPS being fast at focusing.

With gear from Ulduar, he’ll become easier, but right now, he’s quite unforgiving. I have a feeling we’ll take him down next time, but with a mishmash of Naxx10/25 gear, he’s a challenge for us, with little room for error.