Issue with Proximity Sensor during calls - Continued.

mbassoc2003 wrote:

Brabus1 wrote:
Is there any fix upcoming soon? This proximity sensor is driving me up the wall.

No there is not.
You can doubt it if you like. Or you can come back and ask the same question in a month. The answer will be the same.
No. There is no fix coming.
The very best you will get is a software override to manually disable the screen. But then a lot of people pointed that out a month ago. And they have been proven to be correct thus far.

Sorry, but I'm really confused how you can say this without even a shred of evidence. You could say, it's your opinion. But then, you know what opinions are for. You need to be more open and not state with emphatic stance that this can not be fixed. And yes, that's my opinion!

dbk9999 wrote:
Can't agree with that at all. Maybe they won't have a fix, but there is no way to know yet. And I can think of possible software fixes which would be better than just a user option to turn off the screen.

Granted, the fact it is taking so long is not encouraging, but I'm certainly not going as far as you are in my opinion. Now, if they come out with 4.1 and it doesn't pretty much solve the problem, then I'd be tempted to say they can't really fix it.

That's a very sensible approach.

What users need to bear in mind is that their refund clocks are ticking, and if they maintain a belief that a software fix is coming, and it does not, they only have themselves to blame if they are stuch with a phone they cannot use.

Apple have made their position very clear. You have 30 days to decide if you want to stay or quit. No promises. No questions asked if you want to bug out.

And for anyone who thinks this will become a bigger issue that it is, threads like this will disappear in the blink of an eye if it ever happens. That's wthe whole point of operating your own support forum.

rbrylawski wrote:

mbassoc2003 wrote:

Brabus1 wrote:
Is there any fix upcoming soon? This proximity sensor is driving me up the wall.

No there is not.
You can doubt it if you like. Or you can come back and ask the same question in a month. The answer will be the same.
No. There is no fix coming.
The very best you will get is a software override to manually disable the screen. But then a lot of people pointed that out a month ago. And they have been proven to be correct thus far.

Sorry, but I'm really confused how you can say this without even a shred of evidence. You could say, it's your opinion. But then, you know what opinions are for. You need to be more open and not state with emphatic stance that this can not be fixed. And yes, that's my opinion!

There is plenty od circumstantial evidence to suggest that is the case. Clearly Apple will not corroberate anything. But let's just see how this one plays out. Make a diary date for four weeks and see if there's a fix by then. Or maybe end of the financial quarter? September 30th? Let's see if my prediction is correct.

mbassoc2003 wrote:
@Goflying.... You cannot gather empirical evidence without access to Apple's data, and we both know it. That means that, by your reasoning, everything you and I both write is baseless supposition.

The point is, based on the evidence presented here and other forums from people who have this issue and have gone through multiple handsets, and those who do not, there is evidence that those who do have the issue experience the problem with every single handset they come into contact with, and those who do not have the problem do not experience the problem with other people's handsets.

Mine is perfectly fine. Yours may not be. But I'd be willing to bet that if we swapped handsets, I'd not have the problem with yours, but all of a sudden mine would have the proximity sensor issue.

If that were so, the only variables would be us users, our usage patterns, the environment we used our phones in, whether or not we modified our phones with screen protectors or cases, and how we held the phones when we made calls.

Now, environmental factors do not seem to play their part in any decernable way. The issue is not specific to any particular level of reletive ambient light. All the other factors are controlled wholely by the user and not Apple.

Now, you can blame Apple for not taking these factors into consideration, but it would be much more sensible to find out what the overwhelming majority of users who do not have a problem are doing differently from those who are having an issue.

Blind hatred of Apple for not being able to tell you what you're doing wrong, or not building in a suitabley wide scope of usage pattern into their testing regime is getting you nowhere. This is not an issue Apple are going to fix. It's bad economics to redesign the hardware, and I'd be willing to bet the last six weeks of beta testing has resulted in no decernable difference for those who have the problem and those who do not.

That also seems to be what is being reported by the beta testers.

You can contine to complain, but you are getting nowhere. You are also not objectively viewing the evidence of what is unfolding before you.

There's no hatred of apple on my part, but I do believe the company has gotten itself into very deep doodoo and, as hard as it may be to climb out, apple just seems to want to keep on digging.

To support the above statement I offer the following:

Let's look at some anecdotal evidence as the empirical data is not available

I propose that OS4 is a disaster zone by anybody's standards and the iPhone 4 is (as Steve Balmer put it), Apple's Vista

* 950,000 views and 4000 posts on the 3g page complaining about ios4
* 280,000 views and 2,000 posts on the 3gs page complaining ditto
* 250,000 views and 2,500 posts complaining about iPhone 4 proximity sensor
* Long term applephile journalists openly stating their concern about apple's QA

I've not ever seen anything like this in the apple universe - it is without precedent

For reasons yet unknown, apple has screwed-the-pooch/lost control of the game in a big way.

What is unfolding in front of us is unfolding slowly - it's a big ball of wax with a lot of mass and momentum - the dynamics of big corporation setbacks play to a very different timescale than that which you might imagine.

You may well be correct in that apple may not ever offer an elegant fix to the proximity sensor problem or the iphone 3g and 3gs users' problems. Now do you honestly think that if that were the case, that apple's decision would not cause significant additional and fundamental damage to apple in the mid to long term?
Trust once eroded is MUCH more difficult to regain.

I believe that the results of apple's actions and decisions 'today' will not be tangibly manifest this year or the next. However, imnsho, like it or not, the damage has already been done, will be significant in its' impact and is going to be nigh impossible to undo in the short term.

dbk9999 wrote:
To goflying too.

Sorry you two missed the memo, but we all just saw four quick posts that accomplished nothing and, I suspect, as I read on I'll find you both still going back and forth.

Or, just maybe, you could both just drop the fight at this point.

good suggestion

The "fix" that is coming is a recalibration of the sensor. It simply does not turn the screen on every time you jerk the phone away from it's optimal position anymore like it did prior to Beta 2. The formula in Beta 3 does not anticipate these movements as the user wanting to use the menu. The screen remains dark, it is only after a lengthier time does it come on now.But the delay in turning off and actuating is still greater than the previous iPhones which tells me the issue, it you want to call it that is hardware related and has to do with the current position of the sensor and its new one sensor design which also includes the light sensor. The software is simply trying to compensate for the new variables which are giving some users what is being called the "proximity sensor issue".

@Goflying - I don't disagee with the figures, but I do not see that they are significant. They may be significant to you or I, but I'd suggest they are insignificant to Apple. MS had a much greater issue with it's Vista rollout, but it had zero impact on the company's progress or development into 7 and no decernable impact on market share. Apple will not experience any decernable negative impact from the release of iP4. It only streangthens their market position for future development, and it would appear that that future development is leaps and bounds ahead of their competitors. I said before, the Phone market is fluid, but Apple are moving in a single direction. Android are on shakey ground, RIM are faltering and have lost focus, and MS may be a gamechanger, who knows? But something like this is not an issue that overly concerns a company that has just rolled out the most advanced handset on the planet, not just to the western world, but practically worldwide. An accomplishment practically impossible with the 3GS, and to all intent and purposes, impossible for any other handset manufacturer.

Lets say they have 200.000 sensor issue returns. There is no way it is even close to being that high. But lets say it is. That's about 2%. By the end of September, that may be 1%. And with a move to Verison, not only do they get added growth, but they get migrating customers away from AT&T, and presumably that eleviated the issue for all the poor sods who get a bad service from that carrier at the moment.

Who knows?
But I do know one thing. Apple will already have thought out all possible scenarios, assessed their impact on their business, and adjusted their game plan to suit. Apple have the most accurate view of what is going to impact on their future.

germanwarfare wrote:
The "fix" that is coming is a recalibration of the sensor. It simply does not turn the screen on every time you jerk the phone away from it's optimal position anymore like it did prior to Beta 2. The formula in Beta 3 does not anticipate these movements as the user wanting to use the menu. The screen remains dark, it is only after a lengthier time does it come on now.But the delay in turning off and actuating is still greater than the previous iPhones which tells me the issue, it you want to call it that is hardware related and has to do with the current position of the sensor and its new one sensor design which also includes the light sensor. The software is simply trying to compensate for the new variables which are giving some users what is being called the "proximity sensor issue".

Your report of the effectiveness of the iOS4.3 beta runs contrary to those who have tested it and reported on the thread, but it is reassuring I'm sure to those who have the probblem.

The suggestion that it is a hardware issue related to the selection of the new sensor and it's position has been one that I have always maintained. I do not beieve they can alter the algorithms and recalibrate the sensitivity or focal length of the sensor. I believe those are fixed. But I can see that an inbuild delay would be a possible workaround. It would be good if one of our resident beta testers could corroberate this for everyone's peace of mind.

Oh, absolutely - they must decide in 30 days. Just like I did. I tried 3 phones, learned enough to know some problems are intermittent, once I was down to less than a week, I was going to return it even if a fix came out - i wanted more time to test it to be sure.

Safer just to return it even if the fix happened and buy again later with 30 more days to test.

Fortunately, I could just go back to my 3G rather than have to make a decision on another phone with a new contract.

dbk9999 wrote:
Oh, absolutely - they must decide in 30 days. Just like I did. I tried 3 phones, learned enough to know some problems are intermittent, once I was down to less than a week, I was going to return it even if a fix came out - i wanted more time to test it to be sure.

Safer just to return it even if the fix happened and buy again later with 30 more days to test.

Fortunately, I could just go back to my 3G rather than have to make a decision on another phone with a new contract.

People just don't seem to think that way though.

Here in the UK most buyers are fortunate enough to find there is no shortage of handsets. You can pretty much walk into any carrier and sign up there and then, and they don't hold you to contract if you return your handsets.

So you can return a handset after 25 days, get a full refund processed in the next seven, and walk straight back in to the same carrier or another and sign back up with a new handset and a whole new 30 day testing period.

Some of the carriers are playing silly bugg3rs with users rights, but none really hold up when the buyer complains and brings pressure to bear, so it's a playground out there for UK users to flit around and test to their heart's content. I'm sure it'll all tighten up after Sept 30, but Apple seem to be writing the rules ATM, and the UK carriers are reluctantly deferring to them.

I also have the same problem on my iphone 4. I keep hanging up on people by accident. I hope Apple come up with a solution soon. I only have a few days left before i can return the phone but will definitely do so as this is unacceptable. How can they have made so many mistakes is just amazing!! Good luck to everyone who keeps their phone...

In general, all Iphone 4 phones have a problem with proximity sensor. There are a lot of video proofs shown in youtube regarding this problem but I have not seen a single video about Iphone 4 not having a proximity sensor problem.
If there are people that believe that Iphone 4 does not have a problem, then these people are either working for Apple, stockholders of Apple or member of their cult
Yes, Apple will not go down due to Iphone 4's flaws because there are still a lot of gullible people that will buy an Apple product just to sit in Starbucks and show off.
But nowadays Iphone 4 is not looked as a fashion product anymore but a person that has it will be a laughingstock instead.

I agree with this 1000%!

geez i couldnt have said it better. I said in a previous post that if i had that much trouble i would have gotten my money back and spent it on an ipod touch and just bought a 30 dollar cricket or something to make calls with.

but therein lies the irony... there is a reason people come here crying there eyes out and complaining... they love their iphone so much they cant part with it... lol... it really is a cruel world i guess... 😉

Asa asa wrote:
In general, all Iphone 4 phones have a problem with proximity sensor. There are a lot of video proofs shown in youtube regarding this problem but I have not seen a single video about Iphone 4 not having a proximity sensor problem.
If there are people that believe that Iphone 4 does not have a problem, then these people are either working for Apple, stockholders of Apple or member of their cult
Yes, Apple will not go down due to Iphone 4's flaws because there are still a lot of gullible people that will buy an Apple product just to sit in Starbucks and show off.
But nowadays Iphone 4 is not looked as a fashion product anymore but a person that has it will be a laughingstock instead.

this is the most ridiculous post on here by far. (aside of course from mbassoc saying there is no issue... that was actually the most ridiculous post)

WRONG

you are so wrong it is almost laughable.

Hmm, this doesn't really fix the issue for me. My problem is not that the screen is lighting up, it's that my cheek is hitting buttons on the screen. With this option I'm sure to hit the End Call button.