With 12% unemployment in the state of California, it's good to know that Apple is hiring antenna engineers, hopefully to fix signal problems with the iPhone 4. Apple began their search for antenna engineers about the same time the iPhone 4 Death Grip Issue surfaced.
The engineer will be required to:
- Define and implement antenna system architecture to optimize the
radiation performance for wireless portable devices.
- The candidate will be expected to performance radiation performance
measurements, create test plans, execute them, publish test reports,
provide feedback to the other design engineers, and lead some of the
manufacturing of antenna.
"Experience with different wireless communication systems such as
GSM/GPRS/EDGE, 802.11, Bluetooth, etc., including the corresponding
system level specifications (e.g. ETSI 51.010, 51.05...) is essential."
suggest that is for the AT&T network not Verizon even though
Bloomberg reported that iPhone is coming from Verizon
next year.
It's a little late for the iPhone 4, but
perhaps the iPhone 5 will be better tested and not suffer from
death grip problems. There is some attenuation and signal loss if you
hold the iPhone near its
steel-rimmed bottom-left corner, especially if you're using the iPhone
4 in a weak signal area, this problem is referred to as "death
grip." To improve reception Apple put the antenna in a metal rim to
improve reception.