Posted on 06-24-10 07:00 pm
The iPhone 4 is finally getting out to the general public, and the lines are filling up. However, a couple of strange issues appear to be popping up with the devices, namely the yellow-spot on the screen, and reception issues with the phone in your hand.
Background
The iPhone 4 was announced with a new exterior antenna design, which would supposedly allow more reception to reach the device. However, like when two TV antenna's touch, touching the two exterior antenna's on the iPhone 4 appears to have a grounding issue.
Reception Problems
Gizmodo has a fully detailed article regarding different diagnostics of the problem. To sum it up, though: Touching the two exterior antenna's does indeed appear to cause the device to lose service. If the device has one bar of service, you may still make phone calls. However, if the device goes into "Searching...", you will not be able to make phone calls. See the evidence videos below:
Also, the problem does appear to be a interference issue, as it also dramatically affects data speeds:
For more information on this problem, visit Gizmodo's article, complete with 20 or so videos demonstrating this, including ways to prevent the problem.
The Screen
The new iPhone 4's screen was designed to have an amazing DPI, and beautiful viewing angles. However, some users are having an issue with a "Yellow Spot" on the bottom right corner. It doesn't appear as common as the antenna issue, but you can read up on it on Engadget.
While these may just be temporary first-launch issues, it is certainly something to think about before you wait in line all day today.