Apple has highlighted the iPhone 4 antenna design and testing during the press conference held yesterday. Steve Jobs commented ‘Nobody is perfect’ and accepted that there are more call drops in iPhone 4 than iPhone 3GS. He revealed some information about the testing lab formally called ‘Black Lab’ which is used for testing by Apple team. Apple has invested around $100 million in development of the lab. It consists of 17 antenna characterization chambers (anechoic chambers) designed to accurately measure antenna and wireless performance and there are 18 PhD scientists and engineers working for the lab.
Inside the black lab, testing is taken up to 25 hours to run across all frequencies. There are various types of testing conducted in the lab which includes positioning the device on Styrofoam blocks, in human hands, and in the vicinity of realistic “phantom” mannequin body parts.
Apple posts about the testing on their site:
”Apple engineers tested iPhone 4 in a variety of scenarios, environments, and conditions in order to gauge performance. They spent thousands of hours in cities in the U.S. and throughout the world testing iPhone 4 call quality, dropped-call performance, call origination and termination, and in-service time. They tested iPhone 4 while stationary, at high and low speeds, and in urban, dense urban, and highway environments. In low-coverage areas and good-coverage areas, during peak and off-peak hours — iPhone 4 was field-tested in nearly every possible coverage scenario across different vendor and carrier equipment all over the world.”
Despite of all these showcasing and testing, Apple didn’t deny that there are some call drops in iPhone 4 which are higher in quantity than iPhone 3GS. In order to satisfy the customers and maintain the goodwill Apple has announced to provide free cases for iPhone 4 or iPhone 4 can be returned back with complete amount refund by September 30.
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