iPhone 4 Antenna
by Mark Hewitt
I could only guess why Apple did the antenna design they used for the iPhone 4 however I can guess that it most likely had to do with an attempt to not violate the Nokia patent. The engineering mistake that placed the dual antenna arrays on the outside edge of the iPhone is a first year product engineering mistake – one that I would not assume Apple made due to lack of senior engineering expertise. We knew this kind if design was flawed at Motorola in the early 90′s and Nokia was the first to lead the Cell phone market with it’s famous body antenna design.
Apple and HTC have been hammering away at each others patent portfolio when most of the actual intellectual property patents are completely obvious to any designer in the industry. I would expect they will wipe out each others patent claims and in light of the recent Biliski case pay closer attention to their own patent portfolio.
I do note that Apple indicated to the market that they were going to fix the problem with a software patch – guess what you can’t change the laws of physics with a software modification - I suspect that much like BP hiding the oil by covering it up with fresh sand – that Apple will install software that will hide the signal strength with a software patch – shame on you Apple.