The iPhone 4's dropped calls: AT&T's fault after all?

Last summer, when Apple and AT&T rolled out the iPhone 4 with a new antenna system, customers complained of so many dropped calls that a new scandal was born: "Antennagate." Though Apple insisted the phone itself wasn't the problem, it eventually handed out special sleeves designed to help. Now, six weeks after Apple rolled out a Verizon version of the iPhone 4, its Verizon customers are reporting a dropped-call rate of only 1.8 percent, versus 4.8 for AT&T phones, according to ChangeWave Research. Does this vindicate Apple and pin the blame for Antennagate squarely on AT&T?

Yes, Apple's in the clear: This whole brouhaha certainly "seems like a fallacy" now, says Wilson Rothman in MSNBC. Verizon's much-better track record on dropped iPhone calls confirms the suspicion that AT&T's network, not Apple, was always "the culprit for call drops." On top of that, the call-killing "death grip" that critics, and Consumer Reports, used to bash the iPhone 4 "has been proven in lab testing to apply to all phones."

"Consumer Reports recommends iPad 2... and its competition"

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The one who realy looks good is Verizon: The difference in dropped calls from Verizon and AT&T is "staggering," says Raven Lovecraft in TG Daily. But Verizon has bested AT&T in "call fidelity and signal strength" for years. True, Apple never "fully addressed" its original dropped-call problems in the Verizon iPhone remodeling, but this record of early success does prove that the tweaks that were implemented are working.

"AT&T iPhone drops 2x more calls than Verizon iPhone"

Neither Apple nor Verizon should get too cocky: Verizon's success with dropped calls may be due to "its lack of iPhone customers," says Molly McHugh in Digital Trends. Remember, AT&T didn't have "crippling" iPhone issues "until the onslaught of iPhone customers hit it like a ton of bricks." Still, regardless of whether Verizon's growing iPhone numbers will overtax its network, Apple will still win; at least 80 percent of respondents love their iPhone 4, whatever carrier they use.

"Report: Verizon iPhone 4 drops fewer calls, but customer satisfaction even with AT&T"