Issue with Proximity Sensor during calls - Continued v2

Daddy Pig wrote:
@greenstem on iphone: My advise would be to return it within 30 days and wait for 4.1. All my friends here in the UK are experiencing the same issue! No point exchanging it, there is a high probability you will get a new phone with the same issue and by the time you realise it has the same issue, your 30 days are up and you are stuck! Return it, and wait, if its fixed with 4.1 buy it again. I am in the same situation, waiting. If its not fixed I am getting the new itouch until the next revision of the iphone.

Message was edited by: Daddy Pig

@Greenstem - Take this guy's advice. Get off this train. You can always get back on when we know the issue can be fixed. To be clear, if you are experiencing the issue on your phone, you will experience the issue on ALL iPhone 4s. We have never found a user who does experience the PS issue and has suddenly found a phone without it. If you happen to be lucky enough to be a user who does not experience the PS issue, the odds are high based on the info presented by users here, that you will not experience the issue at all on any handset. It is a user initiated issue. It comes down to the way the users use their phones. So, get your money back and wait and see if Apple manage to rewrite the code to be more inclusive of the type of handling their phone can deal with.

Goflying wrote:

Daddy Pig wrote:
@greenstem on iphone: My advise would be to return it within 30 days and wait for 4.1. All my friends here in the UK are experiencing the same issue! No point exchanging it, there is a high probability you will get a new phone with the same issue and by the time you realise it has the same issue, your 30 days are up and you are stuck! Return it, and wait, if its fixed with 4.1 buy it again. I am in the same situation, waiting. If its not fixed I am getting the new itouch until the next revision of the iphone.

Message was edited by: Daddy Pig

What I don't understand is the posts from people with 4,000 plus posts to their names saying that they haven't experienced the problem and don't know anyone who has - makes no sense.

Meanwhile, I don't know anyone who doesn't have the proximity sensor issue to a greater or lesser degree (and I do know more than a handful of iP 4 users)

There are millions of users who don't have the issue, whilst the number of those who do remains small in comparison, so the people who experience this are in the minority. It seems to be the way some people use their phone, just like the antenna issue was the way people held their phone. That's not to say the sensor wasn't badly selected or positioned, just like placing the antenna gap in a position where it was likely to be bridged with the fingers was probably a poor design decision too. But in reality both issues are experienced by a tiny minority of folks and obviously for those who do it's a real pain in the ***.

I am really looking forward to the new software, because so many people swear blind this is a software issue and it's gonna get fixed by iOS4.1, and they really get worked up by the idea that is could ever be something THEY were doing with the phone that most people don't do, that initiated the problem.

I really hope you guys are right and iOS4.1 is the magic bullet you're all praying it is, but if' it's not, then maybe the discussion needs to move towards how exactly people use their phones, and how they differ from the majority of folks.

I'm hoping Apple will release iOS4.1, but I suspect they'll just say it'll be coming out soon and with all that's been talked about trying to integrate the gaming platform and the problems they're having with it, it might be October before you see an updated OS. Either way, this week is gonna be interesting.

MichaelEmpire wrote:
But Meanwhile Apple continue to sell MILLIONS defective phones.

Gotta disagree with you Michael. The phone is not faulty. It works for the vast majority of users. If you have a product, and the overwhelming majority of users have no issue with it, it cannot be faulty. Just because someone percieves something to be faulty and/or can't get it to work the way they want it to, that does not make the product faulty. If the vast majority of users use a phone and it works perfectly well, and then a tiny majority cannot get a that perticular phone to work the way everyone else does, that makes it a user fault. There is no other definition of this fault other than a user error.

Unless of course you have evidence that more than say 4-5% of users are experiencing the PS issue. And even at 5% it makes the phone less 'faulty' that the 3GS by that definition. Until complaints from completely individual buyers gets to the high hundreds of thousands, this issue is verging on insignificant in the real world of business and product release. If you work in consumer electronics you should know this. And even then, you are only a marginal user group who have an issue. It cannot be classed as a fault in the real world. It's just your hatred of Apple that is maintaining your fantasy about wrong doing.

mbassoc2003 wrote:
There are millions of users who don't have the issue, whilst the number of those who do remains small in comparison, so the people who experience this are in the minority. It seems to be the way some people use their phone, just like the antenna issue was the way people held their phone.

Haven't you seen my post?

The problem is so easy and trivial to diagnose, I am puzzled about all the ongoing discussion which I would never had anticipated.

It is obvious that the problem must affect every user who doesn't always press the phone against his ear during a call. Or change ears for "ear relief" 😉

From watching how people phone, I would say that at least 20% are affected. That are millions for sure!

The number of dropped calls because of this must be close to a 100 million already!! Each dropped call may cause economic damage. Has anybody ever considered what this bug does to the economy?

The antenna problem is easy to work around but hard to solve in software. And only emerges in areas with poor reception.

The proximity sensor problem is impossible to work around (you can't tell your hand to behave differently, those are reflexes...) and easy to fix in software (see my earlier post).

This makes Apple's unability to provide a fix intolerable. Because it is both so easy and so important.

mbassoc2003 wrote:
Gotta disagree with you Michael. The phone is not faulty. It works for the vast majority of users. If you have a product, and the overwhelming majority of users have no issue with it, it cannot be faulty.

That's not the logic calculus as I learned it at university.

Not debating if it an overwhelming majority or not. Just consider this:

A BMW sedan (their only model) which makes all people hurt their head when larger than 6 foot. Cannot be faulty? :lol:

You don't make much sense and speculating just as much as ME. Neither one of you are privy to any statistical data surrounding this discussion. By Apple easily agreeing to replace i4's due to no other issue than a PS complaint this shows (doesn't prove, just strongly supports theory) that Apple knows this is affecting a very "significant" number of i4's. Notice I said significant and not "all" or "few". Significant is enough to cause them black eye and embarrassment if not rectified. They either solve this soon or will lose future business due to increased competition in this market segment.

Gotta disagree with you Michael. The phone is not faulty. It works for the vast majority of users. If you have a product, and the overwhelming majority of users have no issue with it, it cannot be faulty. Just because someone percieves something to be faulty and/or can't get it to work the way they want it to, that does not make the product faulty. If the vast majority of users use a phone and it works perfectly well, and then a tiny majority cannot get a that perticular phone to work the way everyone else does, that makes it a user fault. There is no other definition of this fault other than a user error.

Unless of course you have evidence that more than say 4-5% of users are experiencing the PS issue. And even at 5% it makes the phone less 'faulty' that the 3GS by that definition. Until complaints from completely individual buyers gets to the high hundreds of thousands, this issue is verging on insignificant in the real world of business and product release. If you work in consumer electronics you should know this. And even then, you are only a marginal user group who have an issue. It cannot be classed as a fault in the real world. It's just your hatred of Apple that is maintaining your fantasy about wrong doing.

You are correct however the majority of people posting here seem to have chosen blind hope over common sense.

I feel as though Michael Empire has been correct in his assumptions all along.

TrentP was also correct in his analysis way back in the first segment of this thread that is now on part 3.

I suggest that anybody looking for solutions to their PS problem go back to the original thread and look at posts from TrentP and MichaelEmpire. There is nothing new here to report. Yes, new users discover this thread on a daily basis however they are posting solutions or theories that have been tried, exhausted, and found not to fix this issue many many many weeks ago.

As far as Apple destroying their reputation, I have to disagree.

For every early adopter, loyal user, or fanboy that has been with Apple for over the past 10 years, there are at least 5 and maybe even a hundred new fans of the company as of late to replace the "previously loyal fan and now newly disgruntled user".

falconeye wrote:
I am new to my iPhone 4 (4.0.1) and about 50% of my calls drop leaving my phone in some random screen. I never had this issue with my 3G.

I learn (e.g., via this thread) that this is a PS (proximity sensor) issue. I can only wonder how people argue at all how this can be anything but a design fault or a series fault.

It is trivial to diagnose the problem. I can go to voicemail and play back a message. While it plays, the PS is active. So, I can move my hand near the phone and watch the screen go on and off. The toggle distance (for my phone) is about 1 inch and the latency for reaction is about 1/2s (not very exact figures, more meant to illustrate what I am going to say). Exact figures are easily measurable though and iPhone4 and iPhone3GS could be measured exactly with regard to this property (toggle distance and toggle latency).

The 4 figures (4/3GS distance/latency) and their comparison should exhibit the nature of the problem with the iPhone 4 and end the discussion forever so we can simply wait for a fix.

Are the zillions of Apple bloggers empty brains? Why is nobody doing this and actually creating content and facts? I am Falk Lumo and my blog does it for Pentax dSLRs. It is possible ...


What makes my phone drop calls is this: I phone and hold the phone a couple of mm away from my ear. Because I don't like to press anything against my ear. Obviously, when I argue on the phone, the phone moves by more than an inch and this activates the screen. Only to hit the ear some fractions of a second later which then presses, e.g., the FaceTime button. Probably one method to drop the call. The PS is not sensitive and/or fast enough.


The fix (if latency cannot be improved to a few milliseconds by a firmware fix) is still easy enough:

When the PS first disables the screen (or at the beginning of a call) start a special mode. Whenever the proximity sensor then enables the screen, start a timer (about 1.5s). While the timer plays, don't display the naked phone call control screen, but display the naked phone call control screen with a protective slider labelled "slide to control your phone call". After the timer fires off (i.e. after 1.5s) the protective slider disappears so that normal operation isn't complicated too much.

Do I really have to work for Apple before obvious solutions like the above are shipped to millions of customers who all are dropping calls? Some of the calls I dropped have been decisive business calls ...


Apple, act immediately or destroy your reputation.

Should have known better than to try to add anything constructive to this conversation. In parting I will say to several of you that keep insisting this is a universal problem with all IP4s - IT IS NOT. I have a large collection of them in support at our office. I have several under test in our beta program as well. Out of all of those - one, exactly one, out of a dozen so far has exhibited the PS problem. Therefore I know it exists. However, the others - zip, zero, nada, never, not once, no problems, period.

Thanks for your succinct and specific experiences, impressions and observations anyway.
FWIW, I am on my 4th iP4... ALL have the issue. Launch day model was the worst. On the last swap, I made them give me a new retail model - right out of a sealed box. Factory 88/ Production week: 31 (August). Same issues. I have made vane attempts here to draw attention to the ROLES of firmware, APIs and Frameworks, but this thread was ruined long ago by two or three ig-nividuals. /

bmwhd1 wrote:
Should have known better than to try to add anything constructive to this conversation. In parting I will say to several of you that keep insisting this is a universal problem with all IP4s - IT IS NOT. I have a large collection of them in support at our office. I have several under test in our beta program as well. Out of all of those - *one, exactly one, out of a dozen so far has exhibited the PS problem.* Therefore I know it exists. However, the others - zip, zero, nada, never, not once, no problems, period.

one out of a dozen huh?

That's >8% That's a HUGE proportion

Imagine if one out of every dozen BMW's had a problem so significant that they could not be driven reliably

whilst I concede that the sample size is statistically not meaningful, I'm still surprised that anyone could be so blase about an 8% failure rate out of the box

bmwhd1 wrote:
Should have known better than to try to add anything constructive to this conversation. In parting I will say to several of you that keep insisting this is a universal problem with all IP4s - IT IS NOT. I have a large collection of them in support at our office. I have several under test in our beta program as well. Out of all of those - one, exactly one, out of a dozen so far has exhibited the PS problem. Therefore I know it exists. However, the others - zip, zero, nada, never, not once, no problems, period.

This data is NOT correct at all. I tried over 100 units and agree that some are worse than others. But all of the unfits as i tried them at least for 10 minutes each showing some degree problem with PS.
I asked also a lot of people around the world if they have the PS problems with their iphone4 and early or later everybody I asked reported that they have the issue.

From what we see on this forum users had 3-4 replacement from Apple and all the units they received were having PS problem.

Let's assume you are correct and according to you the most is like 1 bad for every 10 units. How come that multiple replacement for so many users did not work. And how come that Apple if your data is correct and obviously Apple would have the same data , how come Apple simply did not instructed the stores to make the tests at the time of sale and find a single 1 bad unit out of 10 good ones and not give customer bad unit. It would be so simple , is it ?

It makes me think you did not test it properly and you did not try to discover the PS issue in all your units.

Think what you want ME. If my phones can't be caused to reproduce the problem either on long (hour+) calls or through bench testing, then what is a reasonable person to think?

But clearly ME, you know it all. An obvious expert on all maters hardware and software related with the iPhone if ever there was one. Next time you're in Texas, please feel free to stop by and use any one of my phones to show me the error of my ways.

Until then, I'll just continue to try work constructively with Apple to find root cause so a solution can be had by all. When the odd user does experience this rare problem, I'll encourage them to swap the hardware with Apple if they want or wait patiently for the fix.

bmwhd1 wrote:
Should have known better than to try to add anything constructive to this conversation. In parting I will say to several of you that keep insisting this is a universal problem with all IP4s - IT IS NOT. I have a large collection of them in support at our office. I have several under test in our beta program as well. Out of all of those - one, exactly one, out of a dozen so far has exhibited the PS problem. Therefore I know it exists. However, the others - zip, zero, nada, never, not once, no problems, period.

I have a tendency to agree with you, although I can't be sure one way or another what the true issue or the resolution is anymore than anyone else on this forum, unless one of them is SJ.

You seem to be in a unique position. Assuming for the moment you have 12 people each with their own phone and that one phone that is exhibiting the problem is used exclusively by one person, can't you swap it with any of the other 11 people to see if that phones problem continues with the new person? And if the person who previously had that phone doesn't exhibit the problems with a "good" phone, wouldn't that prove your point?

Essentially I am asking if the problem follows the phone or the user, or even possibly both. That could give you a good read on where the problem lies.

falconeye wrote:

mbassoc2003 wrote:
There are millions of users who don't have the issue, whilst the number of those who do remains small in comparison, so the people who experience this are in the minority. It seems to be the way some people use their phone, just like the antenna issue was the way people held their phone.

Haven't you seen my post?

The problem is so easy and trivial to diagnose, I am puzzled about all the ongoing discussion which I would never had anticipated.

It is obvious that the problem must affect every user who doesn't always press the phone against his ear during a call. Or change ears for "ear relief" 😉

From watching how people phone, I would say that at least 20% are affected. That are millions for sure!

The number of dropped calls because of this must be close to a 100 million already!! Each dropped call may cause economic damage. Has anybody ever considered what this bug does to the economy?

The antenna problem is easy to work around but hard to solve in software. And only emerges in areas with poor reception.

The proximity sensor problem is impossible to work around (you can't tell your hand to behave differently, those are reflexes...) and easy to fix in software (see my earlier post).

This makes Apple's unability to provide a fix intolerable. Because it is both so easy and so important.

Sorry, but those figures are pure bullsh!t. I'm sure people who have the PS problem would like to think that there are millions of people in the same boat, and hundreds of millions of failed calls as a result, but that is the fantasy of someone who is desperate and grasping at straws.

Anyone can pull figures out of their ar$e. I could counter your BS by saying there are over a billion calls that have happened with no PS issue, and tens of millions of perfectly happy buyers who have no PS issue, and that of the people who have 'experienced the PS issue' 80% of those wrap their fingers around their phones and press buttons. But, as with your figures, that would be bullsh!t too.

I'll ask you the question no-one here has yet been able to answer...

If this is such a big issue, why is there no evidence of an actual call unintentionally muterd or placed on speaker phone on YouTube, and how come it isn't possible for the majority of people to manage to get their cheek/face/ear to activate the acreen when they have their faces lit up by their phone?

Yes, I acknowledge that my face shouldn't be lit up during a call, but I've never seen anyone have a problem with it, either in person or on YouTube. And regardless of any of the figures you might want to bany about, you cannot get away from the fact that users who do not have the problem do not have the problem with ANY handset, and users who do have the problem have the problem with EVERY handset, and the only variable in that entire equation is the user himself.

Poor design, yes. But the user is the fault.

bmwhd1 wrote:
Think what you want ME. If my phones can't be caused to reproduce the problem either on long (hour+) calls or through bench testing, then what is a reasonable person to think?

But clearly ME, you know it all. An obvious expert on all maters hardware and software related with the iPhone if ever there was one. Next time you're in Texas, please feel free to stop by and use any one of my phones to show me the error of my ways.

Until then, I'll just continue to try work constructively with Apple to find root cause so a solution can be had by all. When the odd user does experience this rare problem, I'll encourage them to swap the hardware with Apple if they want or wait patiently for the fix.

I have explained from the statistic I have and even from what we have reported from others on this forum and other forums that you exclamation that 1 out of 12 phones you have is with PS issue and the rest are perfect is not consistent with what is reported.
I tried to be as much constructive as possible explaining that if your data would be correct those who change the phones 3-4 Times would get the working phone but the never got one.
I also suggested that if your data would be correct and only 1 of 12 is bad , Apple would also instruct the stores at the time selling or at least replacing the phone to test them and find that one out of 12 bad and not to sell it. Since it is not happening I have reasonable doubts that your data is correct.
Did I try to question your qualification? Did I try to tell you that you are not telling the truth ? Not at all.
For me you sarcastic way to reply is nothing but showing you can not respond on the subject and prefer those vague statement about you "constructively " working with Apple.
The developer in a first place must have an open mind and not stick to the unsupported data. Try.