Apple to release software patch for iPhone reception woes?

Stephen Withers
Friday, 15 August 2008 05:08

Your IT - Mobility

Suggestions that Apple's iPhone 3G may need a hardware fix for good 3G reception have been doing the rounds of the blogosphere. However, a new report claims that a firmware fix is on the way and could be all that's necessary to do the job.

While some iPhone 3G users are reporting no issues with 3G reception, others say they experience low signal strength in locations where other phones see strong signals, frequent fallbacks to GSM, and call dropouts. iTWire readers fall into both categories.

A story in BusinessWeek says "two well-placed sources" confirm the issues are related to the Infineon chip used by Apple, but unlike Nonura Securities' Richard Windsor who asserted hardware repairs would be necessary, they say the company plans a software update to address the problem.

One of BusinessWeek's sources claims that Apple's software checks for a stronger signal and more 3G bandwidth than is actually required, and consequently tends to switch unnecessarily to GSM.

If that is the issue, or at least a significant contributor to the problems some users are experiencing, it should be relatively easy to fix.

It also ties in with my observation that an iPhone 3G displaying only a few bars of signal strength will not necessarily experience poor reception, and I've seen other users report the same thing.

Does that rule out the presence of a hardware fault? Please turn to page two.