The iPhone 4 is having widely reported issues with signal strength. Users are reporting that when held in the left hand – which bridges two of the externally mounted antennas in a characteristic manner – the signal strength meter drops away.
I have had middling luck reproducing this on my new iPhone. I saw it once, then couldn’t make it happen again no matter how I shifted it around in my hand. Finally, I managed to make it to happen consistently enough for me to do some slightly more scientific tests.
The first test was back-to-back uses of the Speedtest.net client to stress the 3G connection in a manner that is at least vaguely reproducible. The results are above. The differing signal strength readings does not appear to affect network throughout. I re-ran this test a further two times with similar results.
The second test was to place a call with the phone, hand-held, showing 1 bar of network strength. This call lasted several minutes and had no audible artefacts at all.
Conclusion: based on this simple test, I think it is more likely to be some sort of software bug with the signal strength display meter than it is to be an actual radio side interference problem. I accept that there are numerous videos of an iPhone 4 dropping calls as it is handled; however, these all appear to be American phones on AT&T, and AT&T dropping calls is not new news. However, this is a very simple test so it would be wrong to draw broad conclusions from it.
