The Fix to the Iphone Antennagate in 2010 Was 20 Bytes
Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago
hachyderm.ioTechstory
skepticalmixed
Debate
70/100
IphoneAntennagateSignal Strength
Key topics
Iphone
Antennagate
Signal Strength
The 'fix' to the iPhone 4's Antennagate issue in 2010 was a 20-byte software change that adjusted signal strength display, sparking debate about whether it was a genuine fix or just a cosmetic change.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Moderate engagementFirst comment
2h
Peak period
9
6-8h
Avg / period
4.2
Comment distribution21 data points
Loading chart...
Based on 21 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Oct 7, 2025 at 4:49 AM EDT
3 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Oct 7, 2025 at 6:55 AM EDT
2h after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
9 comments in 6-8h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Oct 8, 2025 at 6:19 AM EDT
3 months ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
ID: 45500834Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 1:08:48 PM
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
I‘m guessing gripping any phone will drop signal strength, but the iPhone made itself look worse.
Most people solved this by indeed not "holding it wrong" or getting cases (I don't know if the cases worked, but there was a whole industry built around advertising cases that solved this problem).
https://web.archive.org/web/20241210053556/https://www.anand...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/jun/25/ipho...
That fixed the actual problem in hardware - the software fix just made things look better.
All my iPhones, not just the 4, regularly dropped calls with AT&T until I switched to Verizon.
The software fix made things look worse. The "bug" was that the number of bars was misleadingly high.
1. I seriously doubt Apple was accidentally displaying more bars on the phone. If it was a "bars" issue then it was almost certainly done deliberately to make the iPhone reception look better than what it was.
2. It wasn't just bars. I had this phone and you would literally drop off calls by holding the phone differently when you hadn't done anything else. There was a genuine problem with the phone that I don't think was ever resolved other than people getting used to holding the phone differently like Steve Jobs told us to.
I lost my iPhone and switched to a hand me down from my parents which was a generation older and the service was significantly better.
Not sure about Apple, but on Android, individual carriers can set the number-to-bars thresholds. Two otherwise-identical signals could be represented as a different number of bars depending on your particular carrier: https://source.android.com/docs/core/connect/signal-strength