ft.com/techblog

Apple has remained characteristically tight-lipped about the reception problems with its much-hyped 3G iPhone. Indeed, it has yet to even acknowledge that a problem exists - a fact that has provoked frustrated responses from some users on Apple’s own support forums. Could that be about to change?

We hear that Apple is close to releasing a software upgrade designed to ‘fix’ the issues contibuting to dropped calls and poor 3G reception on iPhone handsets. Our industry sources tell us that Apple is expected to launch the new software within “the next few days.”

That would be an implicit acknowledgement that at least some of the user complaints about poor 3G performance are justified, although it remains unclear whether problems are truly widespread or whether they are affecting only a fraction of the millions of iPhones sold since the 3G handset launched last month.

Whatever the case, the whole affair highlights something engineers at rival companies like Research in Motion are fond of stating in connection with Google’s forthcoming Android software stack, as well as the iPhone:  People underestimate the complexity of mobile handsets, (cellphone) radio is not simple.

Bottom line for Apple fans: Don’t despair, help seems to be on the way. 

Update: And just like that, Apple has gone live with an iPhone software update designed to fix unspecified “bugs”. It remains to be seen if this is the update our sources were referring to. Apple still has not come out with any public statement about the extent of reception problems on the iPhone 3G, or what it is doing to fix them.

August 18th, 2008 in Internet | Permalink