iPhone 4 signal fault leaves Apple 'stunned'
Source: BBC

Apple says a fault on its new iPhone 4 is causing it to incorrectly display the phone's signal.

Users who gripped the phone on the lower left-hand side noticed the signal strength and reception fell away.

Apple says the problem relates to an error on how the signal bars are displayed, rather than the signal itself.

However some industry experts say that there may be a deeper signal problem than a cosmetic design flaw.

Apple is promising a patch fix "within a few weeks". Users may also choose to get a full refund within 30 days of purchase, the firm has said.

The iPhone 4 went on sale on 24 June.

In a statement, Apple said the iPhone 4 had been "the most successful product launch in Apple's history" and that all phones gripped in "certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars".

"We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising," the statement read.

"Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong.

"Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays two more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display four bars when we should be displaying as few as two bars.

"Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don't know it because we are erroneously displaying four or five bars.

"Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place."