Common iPhone Defects

Recently complaints about poor reception and dropped calls have been mounting to the point where one owner has sued Apple for misrepresenting 3G performance. Here’s a rundown of some complaints that are reported by many users. Connectivity Problem is the most serious complaint to date appears to be a connectivity problem. Users have been noticing an unusually high number of calls being dropped in mid-conversation along with seemingly arbitrary switching between the lower speed EDGE network and high speed 3G networks in some cases, when the phone remains in a fixed position. As of this writing, Apple has been mum but some theories point to problems with the Infineon chip set integration as well as deficiencies in AT&T’s 3G coverage. Next comes in the battery life problem. The original iPhone would never win an award for battery life. Apple claimed it improved battery life in the iPhone 3G however, there were concerns about how much the 3G radios and GPS would affect battery life. Out of the gate, there were many complaints about short battery life on the 3G. There still appears to be widespread concern over poor battery life with some users barely able to make it through a day of normal use.

Apple released some battery saving tips that recommend turning off unused features like 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth etc. One user pointed out that turning Location Services off again when using the GPS returned a huge savings in battery life. There are periodic resets, freezes and lockups too. There is more than one complaint about the iPhone locking up in the "Apple Logo Reset" mode during updates or installs. You can find work-around like this one that have saved many users a trip to the Apple store. Sluggish performance is also an issue for many iusers. Many users have mentioned performance issues like waiting for a contact list to become usable or iTunes synching times feeling like they take longer than they should. Many users find overall performance degrading over the course of a day and perform a reset to bring their iPhones back up to speed.

Next come in the issue of no tethering. Tethering your laptop computer to your iPhone's high speed connection through Bluetooth is much lamented by iPhone owners who are all too aware how common this feature is on other cell phones. An application from Null River that turns your iPhone into a Wi-Fi access point appeared briefly on the App Store but was quickly removed. A similar application from Joiku is available for Nokia phones like the N95. No Sling box is a technical error pointed by users. This is not a common complaint but wouldn’t it be cool if you could watch live TV on your iPhone through your Sling box? You can do that now on Windows Mobile based phones. This thread on the Sling box forum might lead you to believe that Sling box for the iPhone is not around the corner. These are various common problems faced by iPhone users.