iPhone 4 Antenna Issues Are Not Happening Just in the USA

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The other day I showed you a video made with an iPhone 4 in an Apple Store. I happened to stroll through one of the newest Apple stores available to the public, the one situated near the Opera in Paris, and decided to check for myself if the Death Grip issue can be replicated right on Apple’s territory.

The fact is that it can be done and the fact that it can be done right in an Apple Store across the pond proves that we’re not looking at an AT&T-related problem here. Sure, AT&T doesn’t have the best reception in the world, especially for iPhone customers, but, as much as you’d hate them for not being able to meet your mobile expectations, they’re not the ones to blame in this case.

The problem that we’re facing here is caused by this beautiful hardware design. The antenna is placed on the outside in order to get you better reception. It turns out that this is the major design flaw of the iPhone 4. Sure, you can blame AT&T partially for this design feature. Had the carrier been able to offer a much pleasant experience to iPhone 3G and 3GS owners then Apple would have probably kept the old antenna design.

But Apple was forced to come up with an out-of-the-box solution to make sure its U.S.-based customers have an iPhone experience as pleasant as possible even in areas where AT&T’s network is not as strong. And the design affected international users too, just check the video below again where you’ll see how an iPhone 4 on Orange France is also a sure victim of the Death Grip.

I already explained how I made the video, and will add that the whole thing was shot before Apple rolled out the iOS 4.0.1 update, in case it matters to anyone. What triggered this article is the fact that some people, while still blindly defending Apple (and I’ve been called an Apple fanboy a bunch of times myself) are still under the impression that AT&T is also part of the antennagate scandal. When in fact that’s not so and carriers have little to do with antenna performance, and by little I mean that they’d have to own some crappy network infrastructure if your iPhone is constantly dropping calls even when not held the wrong way.

So there you have it folks, AT&T is not at fault for the iPhone 4 issue, at least not directly, and the problem is not just U.S.-based. Do any of our international readers own iPhone 4s? Were you able to replicate the problem?