iPhone 4 Reception Issue

It's everywhere, I'm not going to post any link this since has become a major issue. Let me just say that this is an issue and not a software bug. I've had Verizon for the last few years and over the past year and a half, I've had about four dropped calls. That's four dropped calls with Verizon over the past 18 months and the last time I can remember was about five months ago when I was on a rural highway and I got a dropped call. Some people get four dropped calls in a day and I got four dropped calls in 18 months or so. Maybe it was three dropped calls or five dropped calls but I know for a fact I haven't gotten near 10 dropped calls.

You can argue I'm in an area with good service but I travel a lot with my dad and I've been to places like Las Vegas and it's outskirts, San Diego, Anaheim, Utah, etc. and I get no dropped calls and I live in the New York City metro area and haven't had a single dropped call around here. Two of those four dropped calls were within about a week of each other but I got no other dropped calls for a long while. And I've had three phones over the past 18 months; I've had the Voyager, the enV Touch, and the Droid. I got the Droid a couple days after its launch and I've gotten maybe one dropped call since having it. This thing is a beast; I've held it in every way possible with five fingers, four fingers, three fingers, the thumb on every area of every section of the phone, with my left hand, right hand, using speaker phone on a table, using speaker phone on a bed, etc. and that has had NO effect on reception. Of course bars fluctuate and I lose 3G every once in a while or I get a single bar out of four but I have never dropped any calls nor have I lost any signal quality.

I might be lucky with my service (Verizon vs. AT&T) but if I do lose bars, I've held it in many other positions and the signal stays the same. This happens mostly in the car so I have to wait a minute or two or sometimes more for service to recover but the way I hold the phone has zero effect on the reception quality. This isn't just with the Droid, this is with the Voyager and enV Touch. It could've been the case with my other phones but I can't remember well enough that far back to make a fair comment.

I find Apple's response to not only be an insufficient response but a bad one and, from my experience, a completely false one. The way you hold your phone might have had an impact a few years ago but the iPhone 4 got launched in the middle of 2010 and it's behaving like my T-Mobile phone six years ago. Verizon's getting better too, by the way. When I would gradually lose service until there was no signal in the outskirts of Vegas two years ago, I get full 3G bars in some areas and never lose 1x signal. Of course it could be a phone related issue since I had the Voyager back then but I'm getting better signal in bad areas, not the same signal or worse signal.

According to all reviews, AT&T's service with the iPhone 4 has gotten better in ways, worse and ways, and the same in ways and that shouldn't be. You can argue how it's better in 60% of your calling, worse in 30% and the same in 10% but the reception should be getting better 80% and the same in those last 20% at the very least. There shouldn't be any worsening of the signal at all.

I just find this issue to be very significant. I don't find the yellow spot issue or the dropping issue to be nearly as significant and for Apple to have the guts to tell a user to "buy a case" gets me even more upset. Even if it's a third party case, unless it's a Chinese knockoff, I'm pretty sure the case company has to pay Apple to be able to put "for iPhone 4" on their product label. Even if you aren't buying an Apple case from the online Apple store or a walk-in Apple store, if I'm correct, you're still paying Apple indirectly even if it isn't directly through Apple. So not only is Apple telling us it's our fault for the reception issues but they are also advertising in the statement too. That's just too much for me and I just can't accept that.

Some people don't care about this and they'll be buying an iPhone as soon as it's available to them but I am a lefty and I was considering getting an iPhone 4 if it were to come out on Verizon but if it has similar issues on Verizon (if it comes out on Verizon) then I'm not buying it. I hold my phone in my left hand most of the time so it just wouldn't work for me. This is my opinion on the matter and feel free to comment.