macnn

08/18/2008, 12:50pm, EDT

Monday, August 18th

Steve Jobs weighing in on 3G connection woes?

Problems with reception on the iPhone 3G may have been acknowledged by Apple's CEO, a new report claims. In a response to a customer complaint, an e-mail has allegedly been sent by Steve Jobs, saying: "We are working on some bugs which affect around 2% of the iPhones shipped, and hope to have a software update soon." The message is believed to be legitimate because of Jobs' occasional willingness to reply to general mail, and his typical terseness.

Should the 2 percent figure suggested in the e-mail be right, as many as 60,000 or more people could be suffering from connection problems associated with the iPhone's 3G broadband. The troubles are generally believed to originate from Infineon's 3G chip, and involve numerous potential difficulties, such as dropped calls, poor voice reception, and continual switching between 3G and 2.5G data. The Jobs message would also appear to back an anonymous source, who has said that Apple is already working to tweak the responsiveness of the Infineon chip.


Filed under: iPhone, troubleshooting, networking, Apple
Other story tags: iPhone 3G, Steve Jobs, Infineon

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2% of phones?

-3
08/18, 1:31pm, EDT

I got an iPhone the day it came out and had very poor reception. In fact I usually have "No Service" in my house here in the middle of Berkeley. I had to return that phone for an unrelated issue, and the 2nd phone... same thing.

Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined May 2000
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2% my A**

-13
08/18, 1:38pm, EDT

I would estimate this to be about 95% not 2%.


Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined Apr 2008
User is offline

Blame ATT for poor recep.

1
08/18, 2:05pm, EDT

It's not 95%. I don't have any reception problems. I do have some data problems but those are limited to times like rush hour starting at 5pm.

I'm in Canada on Fido and it seem that 95% of people having problems are on AT&T.

Senior User
Joined Jul 2004
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Fine here

2
08/18, 2:06pm, EDT

3g iPhone is fine here and with the 3 other friends that bought it the same day

Forum Regular
Joined Apr 2005
User is offline

on topic...

5
08/18, 2:26pm, EDT

...This article should concern itself with the authenticity of the e-mail rather than regurgitate the previously reported iPhone issues to which the e-mail refers! The "believed to be legitimate" link connects to macrumours.com which suggests authenticity because a) the message is short and b) Steve uses e-mail. Sheesh!

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Joined Oct 1999
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Percentage

1
08/18, 2:32pm, EDT

All this talk that goes along the line of 'I have a friend who knows a guy who has an iPhone...' can neither prove nor dismiss any number on market scale. What you should be interested in is that this news suggest the fix won't require you replacing your iPhone.

Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined Jan 2006
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1st hand

1
08/18, 2:49pm, EDT

I have an iPhone 3g... my girlfriend who lives with me has a 2.5g, and I had a 2.5g before upgrading... the reception is worse - calls drop more, and AT&T sucks


Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined Jun 2007
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no prob here

1
08/18, 3:03pm, EDT

I have an iPhone 3G and haven't had any connection probs. Most problems would probably be AT&T related if there is lack of 3G coverage. I've had my phone switch to Edge a few times but I also had a friend on AT&T with me at the time and his phone (Tilt) switched to Edge in the same areas as well.

well

-5
08/18, 11:11pm, EDT

He could've given a "Told you so" or a "Hey, you wanted it, now you've got to live with it!"

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Joined Aug 2001
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