Apple’s first main iPhone controversy got here 15 years in the past with the iPhone 4. On the time, customers complained that the system would utterly lose sign relying on how they held it, an issue known as Antennagate. After initially suggesting folks had been merely holding their telephones the fallacious method, Steve Jobs ultimately provided each iPhone 4 proprietor a free bumper case to mitigate the difficulty. Nonetheless, it was truly iOS 4.0.1 that quietly fastened the issue. To at the present time, it is remained unclear how Apple managed to resolve the difficulty with out launching a world recall.
Whereas a yr later the corporate redesigned the antenna within the stainless-steel body of the iPhone 4S to place an finish to the difficulty, an engineer has lastly uncovered the reality behind that mysterious repair. Imagine it or not, it got here right down to a 20-byte patch. Here is what occurred again then, and the way Apple truly fastened the difficulty for iPhone 4 customers with a small software program replace.
How iOS 4.0.1 ended Antennagate
In an X submit, engineer Sam Henri Gold (by way of Macworld) revealed that the repair for the iPhone 4’s Antennagate in 2010 got here down to only 20 bytes of code. By reverse-engineering the firmware of iOS 4.0 and iOS 4.0.1, he found the exact modifications Apple made. Primarily, Apple had miscalculated the iPhone’s precise sign power. The system typically displayed 4 or 5 bars when reception was a lot weaker. Due to this fact, when holding the iPhone, the sign appeared to drop dramatically, from 5 bars down to 2, making it look like there was a serious antenna flaw.
Apple corrected this by adjusting the values to higher mirror actual sign power. That meant customers noticed fewer five-bar readings, but in addition skilled fewer drastic drops. The chart above reveals the distinction between Apple’s authentic sign calculations and the precise readings.
The corporate even tweaked the peak of the decrease bars to make them extra visually balanced. Nonetheless, the iPhone 4 did have a real antenna subject, and whereas Apple lessened its influence with a software program replace, it wasn’t till the next yr’s iPhone 4S that Antennagate actually grew to become a factor of the previous.
