Originally Posted by
anrkitec
Not at all true. Europe for example uses different GSM frequencies than does the U.S. so it could very well be a hardware problem when using the U.S. GSM frequencies and less of a problem on European frequencies.
It could also be as simple as perhaps a greater percentage of Europeans buy a case at the time they pick their phone up and have therefore yet to run into the problem.
Good point about the frequencies. I hadn't thought about that, but it is entirely possible that the antenna on the iPhone4 is flawed at one or both of the US frequencies. Of course it is possible that this is not the case.
But as to your other guess, no, I rarely see anyone with iPhone cases over here. And there is nothing in the news regarding reception problems over here in languages other than English, except for the occasional techno-blog. The US reception issue is unknown by the main stream in Europe. So people have no reason to purchase a case unless they are concerned about protecting the glossy back. I would never buy a case since it makes it more difficult to slip the phone into my pocket.
So it is still a minor mystery as to why US customers have this problem. We still don't know for sure if it is the phone or the network. Maybe when the unlock becomes public and lots of people start using their iPhone 4 on the T-Mobile USA network we will see something different?