Okay. So you are one of those poor souls who braved the weather and queued outside the Apple Store for hours before you could get hold of your prized possession only to realize that this thing does not make a call.
It looks like there are several hundreds of users out in the wild complaining about the signal reception issues that seem to be plaguing the recently launched iPhone 4.
Apple has not announced an official fix. Steve Jobs has pronounced his verdict – Users are holding their device the wrong way. Apple is also learned to be sending manuals to their retail staff instructing them about how to counter complaints from iPhone users experiencing these issues. Effectively, there has been little support from Apple about this so far.
Surprisingly, there seems to be a minor workaround that has helped several users get over the signal reception issue. Get ready and note the steps carefully
1. Use the paperclip-like pin that was provided with your iPhone to remove the SIM card from the tray
2. Now, with the tray open, reseat the SIM on the tray so that it is properly centered
3. Reinsert the tray into the iPhone
Looks too absurd a fix for an issue as important as signal reception, right? But it seems to be working for a lot of users. One user on the MacRumors forum offers a reason
“The metal part of the sim card is not centered and is contacting the sim tray. The sim tray is steel and the sim tray is contacting the outer antenna band. Once you touch the phone, this could be causing a sim issue. If when you touch the antenna line on the lower left it changes the state of frequency, power or what ever, it might actually be messing with the sim card. The metal on the sim is connected to the sim tray, the sim tray is connected to the antenae and the antenae is connected to your hand when you touch the phone. Take a look at your sim card and see if the metal is just off center enough to touch the tray.”
So there you go. Try it – It costs nothing. And don’t forget to post in here about how it goes.