My guesses about the iPhone 4 issues

I feel like the signal problem was identified in the US, where from what I understand, AT&T have a pretty poor network and that the signal drop from holding the phone wrong was then reported. Since then, everyone has tried the "death grip" with varying degrees of "success" in reproducing the issue. Sometimes it's seen everywhere, sometimes only in a few places with low signals, sometimes not at all, and sometimes a better signal is gained. It also seems that people are seeing the signal drop a little but not enough to drop a call. This of course could well be faulty hardware or a design flaw, but you would think (and hope) that this would have been tested pretty extensively, especially as the issue was apparently brought to the attention of Apple management early on. All these stories are making people now actively looking for a signal drop and so it is obviously getting reported more and more, even if it's only loosing a bar or two and seems to be getting blown out of proportion.

At the weekend I was in Bristol still with my 3GS, the signal in the hotel room was pretty bad, holding the phone in my hand (like the picture in the engadget post above) I had a very poor signal and no 3G, not even Edge. Having shifted the phones position in my hand to just the finger tips by chance, I gained a bit of signal and 3G, thus in my accidental test got the death grip issue with my 3GS. Having now got my iPhone 4, I briefly tried the death grip but nothing happened, but O2's signal in Edinburgh has been really good everywhere which leads me to believe that the signal strength is the major factor in the problem.

Those are just my wild guesses and who knows what's really going on. I don't know anything.

Let's see what Mr Jobs has to say later on.