Apple, perhaps intentionally, has turned the once clear problem of the iPhone 4 displaying dramatically worse reception when the bottom left band is covered to a muddle of “facts” about bars and antennae.

Here’s what we know:

Many, perhaps all, phones have worsening performance when they are held in a certain way. Specifically, covering up the internal antenna with your hand is generally thought of as poor form. I remember an old Nokia I had specifically instructing me how the phone should be held and that I should be vigilant lest my thumb drift over the Nokia logo, which served double duty as an antenna.

Many people gauge “reception” by the bar meter displayed by basically all phones, but there is in fact no standard as to what these bars mean. They’re basically only useful for comparing relative signal strength between the same make/model of phone, and even a strong showing on the meter doesn’t guarantee good performance, though there is some correlation.

According to Apple, they had calibrated their meter such that only when the signal was relatively weak did the bars start dropping. They are attributing this to human error, but the more cynical could argue that it served their purposes in the past (more bars in more places), but not now (dramatic fall of in “bars” when held the wrong way).

The general consensus is that covering the black band on the left side of the phone is a bad idea because it “shorts” the two antennae together. This is a hardware issue because of the exposed antennae, though that same hardware feature probably improves the signal a bit when you’re not covering up the black band.

Why doesn’t this affect WiFi reception? Why doesn’t covering the black band on the top of the phone (another junction between the two antennae) have the same effect? I haven’t gotten good answers to this yet, but there probably is some explanation, since using a case (so you can’t touch the antenna metal) seems to alleviate the problem.

Apple’s fix is to recalibrate the reception meter to what it says is AT&T’s recommendation. But the iPhone is sold in more countries than the US, on other carriers. Does Apple calibrate the signal strength separately for each carrier? Probably not…my guess is that AT&T’s formula will just lessen the severity of the perceived signal drop and highlight areas with poor reception, which will be seen as the carrier’s fault (which it probably is, to a large degree).

Apple has promised a fix for the meter in “a few weeks”. If they’re just changing the formula, why wait a few weeks? This is my guess: Apple got caught off guard by this issue, probably because they test their phone in disguise, protecting the metal band. They want some time to figure out if there’s anything else they can do via software to remedy this problem, but they needed to put out some statement now because otherwise it makes them look clueless and distracts from all the features of the new iPhone.

The backup plan is likely not to offer free bumpers, since this will hurt case manufacturers, but to give an Apple Store credit for the value of a bumper. They should probably just do that and be done with it.

Apple’s iPhone 4 bumpers take away from the beauty of the unprotected device, but one company has managed to come up with a really slick protector:

ElementCase’s Vapor 4 looks quite slick. It’s made of anodized aluminum, protecting the iPhone and insulating the antenna to avoid the signal drop some people observe when they hold the bottom left corner of the phone.

One caveat – does protecting a beautiful device with another beautiful device leave you better off…or now will you just start worrying about damaging the case?

There is no other word I can think of to describe the disaster that was the iPhone 4 preorder process. Whether the order was initiated through AT&T or Apple, the whole process failed miserably for most people. Even those who successfully ordered an iPhone 4 required multiple attempts, often spending hours before the attempt went through.

Apple knew this would be popular. AT&T knew this would be popular. This happens every year. I’m not sure who is at fault here – AT&T apparently bears the brunt of the blame given the pattern of failures, but Apple should have at least posted some acknowledgement that the system was having problems.

I hope AT&T gets this problem fixed before it’s time to activate these things – another source of perennial frustration.

But I shouldn’t complain…

I’m a huge fan of Google Reader. I really can’t imagine keeping track of multiple websites without RSS, and Google Reader manages RSS across multiple computers. These days, much of my web reading has shifted to the iPhone and iPad. Reeder is a fantastically well done iPhone app that syncs with Google Reader, but until today there was no iPad version. It was a shame, because the iPad is such an ergonomic reading device. The long wait for Reeder for iPad is well worth it, as is the modest $4.99 fee. In the first few minutes of use, it has dramatically improved the usefulness of the iPad for me. If you use Google Reader, Reeder is a no-brainer. If you don’t use Google Reader, you really should.

This strikes me as really silly.

Yes, it’s a problem that AT&T is axing the unlimited data plan that was highly touted at the relatively recent iPad launch. Even if 2GB is enough for most people, this really feels like a bait and switch. Their “solution” was that anyone who currently has the unlimited plan activated can keep it, as long as it’s active before June 7. The problem is that it’s hard to get an iPad in that amount of time: their sold out quite widely and even Apple’s online store is backordered. Is selling data plans before people buy their iPad a solution? Technically yes, but it’s not much of one, especially since the whole point of the iPad plan was that you can turn it on and off as you like.

What would make a lot more sense? How about extending the unlimited option for the iPad for the rest of 2010, instead of introducing this switch with only 1 week’s notice.

Does AT&T have anyone actually thinking about PR?

It’s nice that’s Apple’s launched an HTML5 demo page. It’s well done, and shows off a number of nice features of HTML5. It’s designed, of course, to bolster Apple’s argument that add-ons like Adobe’s Flash are unnecessary and outdated. The nice thing about using standards, argues Apple, is that you don’t need plug-ins or add-ons…everything just works. You’re not dependent on one company or one product.

What’s not a good way to support this point? How about requiring that anyone not using Safari switch browsers to view the demo. It undercuts the argument significantly. While it’s true that some other browsers don’t support all the HTML5 features, Apple would be wise to at allow as much as possible. They could either just block specific demos that wouldn’t work, or display a notice that the browser may have incomplete HTML5 support and certain features may not work.

Just ordered an induction burner – soon to be the core of my kitchen for the next 3 months.

You can keep your existing unlimited data plan http://bit.ly/bjQ9tP #iphone

There’s been a number of rumors about the upcoming iPhone, which most people assume will be announced in less than a week. It looks like a high-resolution 960×640 IPS LCD screen will be there, as will a front-facing camera for self portraits and video calling. Many details are still not clear, but I predict we’ll see this model in the same three sizes as the iPad: 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB. It will be available in black and white. It will have a new design with a flat black and metal controls. It will have a 5 megapixel camera with a flash.

The real unknown is the name. The most likely contenders are iPhone HD, iPhone 4G, and iPhone 4.

iPhone HD has been a popular name – it emphasizes the high res screen and presumably the ability to record HD video. It makes sense as a name, but doesn’t really address the front facing camera. I think it’s reasonably likely.

iPhone 4G was tossed around in the police reports surrounding Apple’s missing prototype, though that doesn’t mean Apple will use that name when the final phone is released. The problem is that it implies that the iPhone will use a “4G” network, which it will almost certainly not since these are largely not available yet.

iPhone 4 avoids the misleading aspects of “4G”, but runs the risk of confusion with the 4th version of the operating system, iPhone OS 4.0. I haven’t seen anyone use this name, but I think it’s reasonably likely.

All these names are equally likely in my mind, but I’d probably favor iPhone HD.