back to article Southpaws up in arms over iPhone 4

Apple has brought down the wrath of the UK's lefthanders after Steve Jobs' insensitive advice on how to use the firm's brand new on-again-off-again iPhone 4. Jobs advised iPhone 4 buyers that the reason they were losing reception was down to the way they're holding the device - so, people just need to avoid gripping it in the …

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    1. some vaguely opinionated bloke

      Not that mad a post...

      Aside from the serrations on most (serrated) knives favouring right handed use, many disposable knives have a thin blade which is reinforced when using the knife right-handed.

      However, turning the knife over to use it left handed results in the reinforcing box section becoming filled with whatever it is that is being spread.

      A little pot of jam for your toast or scone then only goes about 3/4 as far when spreading left handed than right handed, unless you use the corner of the toast/edge of the scone to scoop out the rest of the jam from the confines of the righty-only reinforcement.

      Not at all IT related, except that my preferred breakfast before coding is typically a scone with jam and short of bringing in my own knife (which I admit might be more environmentally friendly) this is a cross which I must bear.

      1. steogede

        @some vaguely opinionated bloke

        > However, turning the knife over to use it left handed results in the reinforcing box section becoming filled with whatever it is that is being spread.

        You wouldn't have that problem if you used a knife designed for spreading, such as a butter knife - superior spreading capability and ambidextrous. Just a shame that the places you are buying your toast and jam from don't supply them (I assume it is an eating out problem). I don't suppose any one would care if you carried a blunt, all plastic, butter knife with you - however technically you would be carrying a bladed instrument, and your reason may not be considered a "good reason".

  1. Chizo Ejindu
    Jobs Horns

    Also as a lefty

    @Lewis Burgess

    Lewis you are so wrong its frightening.

    I think this is utterly ridiculous that such an obvious design flaw was missed in testing. And then the stunning arrogance of his holiness to tell me that i need to hold it differently or buy some stupidly overpriced rubber band to make it work properly is truly astonishing. And the fact that you are sitting here apologising for and making excuses for a mutli-billion dollar global company is frankly even worse.

    I don't use phone cases, never needed one as i'm not a club-handed simpleton and i don't see why i should be required to buy one to use an iPhone 4. But hell if your happy holding the phone in the Apple proscribed fashion and buying a large variety of overpriced Apple endorsed peripherals to enable the product to work then you go right ahead. A fool and their money will always be parted.

    1. ThomH

      Actually, he said...

      ... once he started deviating from the official statement that "There are no reception issues. Stay Tuned." (which, if you believe Apple blogs, is Jobsian code for "a fix will be forthcoming"). If the problem really is bridging between two different antennas then it's not unimaginable that a software fix will solve things. The "we're not wrong, you are" attitude in the interim is hard to stomach though.

      @ the "why is this only a left handed issue?" gang, I think the point is just that the issue is prone to affect lefties more than righties during the critical usage scenario of making a phonecall and the group the report is about are an advocacy group for left handed people.

  2. Big Bear
    Stop

    RE: FFS get a grip :D (AC Monday 28/06 10:25)

    "the signal is great - no worse than the 3GS or any other phone"

    But the previous iPhones were notorious for having crap reception...

  3. Robert Ramsay
    Coat

    Why am I thinking of Hunter S. Thompson?

    "Just think about people who like to flip the bird while using their phone. Or smoke. And of course, drive."

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Ha Ha!

    I'm filthy rich. I have a man to hold my iPhone for me.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      the same man.....

      obviously has a penis. You clearly dont!

  5. Ben Cooper
    WTF?

    Hugging?!

    As a left-handed person, I'm glad they are sticking up for me - all my life, I have been unable to hug anyone because of this discrimination - it is truly horrible. And bread rolls? Right-handed bread rolls have made me the butt of dinner-party jokes for years.

  6. Jamie Kitson

    Driving

    Depends which side of the road you're driving on, and whether you need to change gear, and which hand you need to do it. I of course never use my phone while I'm driving, I need my spare hand to hold my beer.

  7. Lamont Cranston
    Joke

    You can

    make phone calls from an iPhone?

    1. Darryl

      You cannot

      No, you can't. Because there's no signal

  8. Peter Gordon
    Thumb Up

    Apple have a solution!

    http://www.b3ta.com/board/10104077

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Arrogant

    To be honest the whole issue seems to be cosmetic rather than actually causing dropped calls etc. but a response like that from Steve Jobs just comes across as supremely arrogant.

  10. eezatehgeeza
    Coat

    Perfect solution!

    Wear latex (or a synthetic alternative) gloves. This will stop you shorting the contacts and allow you to "safely" commit crimes to pay for your Jobs habit...

    Mines the one with someone else's wallet in the pocket...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Nothing to do with being left handed...

    I'm right handed and hold my (non apple) phone in my left hand, so that my right hand is free to write, press keys etc. thus the bottom left hand corner is always in my left palm.

    It's just a stunning own goal by Apple, being handled with their usual grace.

    Incidentally, I can encase my cheapo LG Cookie in my hands so that only the top corner of the screen showing the signal is visible, and I get 5 bars on T-Mobile. Just making the well made point that not every phone suffers this way.

    But I am enjoying the schadenfreude of watching the Jesus phone get crucified!

  12. This post has been deleted by its author

  13. Andrew Moore
    Jobs Horns

    Hypocrite...

    So his Jobness is telling people to buy rubber "bumpers" to alleviate the design flaw. Wasn't this the same guy who demanded all iPhone screen protectors to be removed from the Apple stores because it gave the wrong impression about the "robustness" of the screen.

    1. RegisterThis
      Happy

      Essential now ...

      From other reports I have read that very-clever-oh-so-hard-but-oh-so-brittle-GLASS covering even the back of the new iPhone scratches and ships quite easily! I think he will be allowing them now ...

  14. itsallcrap
    FAIL

    This is way broader than 'handedness'

    They've made a phone that doesn't work properly if you put your hand over a particular part of it, and then have the cheek to tell us that doing so constitutes using it wrongly.

    I'm left handed, but can quite happily use a phone with either hand. The point is, every other phone in existence, you CAN use with either hand.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      RE: This is way broader than 'handedness'

      "I'm left handed, but can quite happily use a phone with either hand. The point is, every other phone in existence, you CAN use with either hand."

      I'm left handed too. I just checked and my fingers come nowhere near the lower left hand corner - PRECISELY BECAUSE I AM LEFT HANDED!

      I've had other phones which cut out signal when covered with my hand... so it's not limited to the iPhone.

      In other words, it's a big deal about SFA.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hugs

    I haven't hugged my father for years. I hadn't realized it's because he is left handed.

  16. Dave Murray
    Jobs Horns

    Design Flaw Not Just For The Sinister

    As someone born with impared hearing in my right ear (but super hearing in my left to compensate) I can't use a phone in my right hand, well not if I want to understand the person on the other end anyway. Since making calls is the reason for buying a phone this is a design flaw that would prevent me buying an iPhone 4.

    Hmmm wonder if I could sue Jobs for discriminating against my disability?

    1. some vaguely opinionated bloke

      me too

      ^ wot he said - exactly the same situation, and being a lefty it makes it difficult sometimes to write things down as the right hand needs then to hold the phone to my left ear.

      Although from what I can gather, this particular layout would not be an issue?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Personally

    I miss the old boingy rubber aerials you used to get on mobies...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      They were an affectation!

      Yes, but they never actually did anything!

      Aerials were only put on phones because no one would buy mobile phone without and aerial, only later on did they take them off when marketers found out people no longer minded using phones without aerials.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    The solution

    The solution has been around for several years:

    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_bwD8iEhOwUk/R06uFg1GbOI/AAAAAAAAAIk/Yilx7hrkd-U/s400/handsfree.jpg

  19. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "discrimination designed as a design flaw"

    Bollocks. It is a design flaw used by neurotic nincompoops as a nitpick for nagging about their personal issues.

    I fully recognize that a vast majority of utensils are made for use with the right hand. Few exist for the left hand, and fewer even exist that are usable by both.

    Nonetheless, this situation is gradually evolving, and many tools are now ergonomically tested to see whether or not it is equally usable by either hand. Scissors have spearheaded this movement, and many other implements are following.

    But a phone is just a phone, and there is nothing in the Iphone or much any other phone that forces a user, by design, to use a given hand.

    So whipping up a frenzy about left-handed discrimination is pure hogwash, especially since left-handers are apparently used to holding their phone in their right hand, just like right-handers hold it in the left. As stated above several times, you use your less dextrous hand to do the simple job of holding, freeing your more dextrous hand to do the usual chores.

    Shame on that organization for clearly knee-jerking off and bandwagon jumping for no good reason.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Southpaws, where do you think the word "sinister" comes from?! Down to the square and burn 'em!

    I am right-handed but my mum was a "southpaw' and I can't sit and eat without first having to flip the cutlery over between hands as I can't eat "the right handed way"!

  21. JamieL
    Alert

    But have they patented it yet?

    If previous form is anything to go by, you'd expect them to lodge a patent for "a means for using the Human Hand to modify radio wave propagation" or some such like.

    Then, when another manufacturer's handset suffers the same problem (sorry, "copies their technology") they can sue for all it's worth.

  22. RayDio

    maybe it's metal cased phones

    Because my Nokia E66 does exactly same thing.

  23. HaplessPoet
    WTF?

    What I don't quite understand...

    Why has no newspaper or Which? or the Beeb, or El Reg or someone not actually got hold of one and tested it under laboratory conditions?

    Surely that would prove it once and for all?

    I went into a couple of phone shops on Saturday to try it out and no matter how I held it it just would not play ball. This was unfortunate as I was trying to convince my wife that she really would be better of without one.

    Best Regards

    David

    1. Ed 12

      able to replicate

      I tried it with 3 different iphones in the apple store in Belfast and all of them had the same problem. I was just holding it in my left hand as I normally would to make phone calls or use the phone onehanded. The signal would either drop to zero or one bar (from a full signal) after a few seconds of usage. The signal would crank back up again once I changed hands. I decided not to point it out to the staff :)

  24. Kevin 43
    WTF?

    Unexplained...

    What exactly is a left or right handed hug?

    I have been using both arms all this time, am I normal?

    1. JCL

      headbutt, no but

      I think it's to do with which way your head goes and which shoulder you end up on. If you both go the same way you'll end up head-butting each other.

      Personally, I've no problem hugging, but do momentarily worry about holding out the wrong hand when I'm about to shake hands with someone.

  25. Jason Sheldon
    FAIL

    Remember when Jobs had network issues during his demo?

    Job's had the audacity to blame the audience hogging wi-fi bandwidth for him not being able to demonstrate net stuff.. perhaps he was just holding it wrong?

  26. Jeff 11
    Jobs Halo

    Wrong way round

    The iPhone as an extension of you? Don't be ludicrous. We are Apple - you are an extension of *us*. As such any of our customers with the tiniest modicum of common sense would simply have metal antennae implanted in their skeleton, to negate their own ineptitude in holding our precious devices. Now be off with you, foolish peasants...

  27. Byles
    Pint

    Sorry, I can't hear you - I'm deaf in my right ear and my phone doesn't work in my left hand!

    Hmm... And if you're hard of hearing in one ear, swapping hands is really going to be an option isn't it?

    How retarded. I use both hands, and to be perfectly honest for the price of that phone I'd want to keep a strong grip on it. But okay Jobs, let's just hold it with one finger instead...

    Thank god I'd never buy an Apple product.

    Beer... Because Jobs must be pissed when he comes up with this shit.

  28. Gulfie
    Unhappy

    I'm almost a lefty...

    ... or would have been but for parental interference.

    So I do most things right handed by default, and some things left handed without realising I'm doing them that way.

    The only irritating aspect of this is that I use my right hand to hold my phone when I'm using it, and as writing is just about the only 'handed' activity I can't do with my left hand, I'm screwed when I'm on the phone. Curiously I find it very difficult to hold a phone conversation with the phone on my left (held in the left hand, against the left ear).

  29. 46Bit

    Uhh

    Why quite so much iHate? Can understand why people dislike iPhones, but this is actually pretty extreme,,,

  30. skellious
    FAIL

    Lefty giving my two cents

    The Left-handed society and other such organisations are, apart from anything else, making things worse. I personally do many things right handed (play guitar, hold knife and fork, use a mouse, play hockey [not that i play hockey], play piano [if you can even call the piano a left/right-able instrument...], turn keys, control ovens and stoves and so on) and the rest I do left handed. It really does not affect my life that much, but organisations such as this cause a percieved split, much like I think organisations such as those set up for one religion, ethnicity or gender cause a split. We are ALL HUMANS, why try and group us?

    @AC

    I too struggle to find a way to hold my smartphone at an angle where I am touching the lower left corner with my fingers. I touch the lower RIGHT corner with my fingers and the lower left with my palm. If I hold it so my fingers are not on the bottom right, my palm is not on the bottom left. I fail to see how this is a left/right handed issue, it's a handling issue for all of us.

  31. Joey
    Jobs Halo

    What would I change about my iPhone 4?

    I'm very happy with mine - but then I actually have one. The teleport function could be better and the backward facing camera could show a more handsome fellow - but it will do until something better turns up.

  32. heyrick Silver badge

    Dear Left Handed Club

    Could you please concentrate your efforts on things that are USEFUL, such as those sweet moulded-handle scissors that are a real pain (in both senses of the word) to use... and WTF is with tin-openers?

    FWIW, I usually hold the phone (any phone) in my right hand. Leaves the left free for typing, writing, or absentmindedly doodling.

  33. Jimbo in Thailand
    Paris Hilton

    LOL!!!!!!!! You guys are killing me!!!

    My side is aching something fierce I've been laughing so hard at these comments. This has to be one of the all time best ramblings the Reg has ever hosted. I've never UP voted so many comments before.

    And BTW, the only way I'd ever consider buying an Ifone is after his sAtanic hOliness adopts a new wardrobe of fluorescent-rainbow-colored Hawaiian shirts and zig-zag striped khaki slacks. OK, the gold pointy-toe Aladdin slippers are optional!

    Now excuse me while I go change my shorts.

    Paris because she's crying alligator tears for his hOliness.

  34. Peter York 1

    Nokias have the same problem... so what???

    See:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&feature=player_embedded&v=amPG52DVQuk

  35. Ian Stephenson
    Coat

    Somebody beat me to the first use of sinister in this thread...

    As a fourth generation cackhander I'd like to point out that which hand I hold the phone in depends on what else I'm doing.

    If im writing, typing,cooking or anything else that needs a degree of coordination the phone will be in my right hand. Unless it's a spreadsheet in which case my right hand is on the numeric keypad (my mouse is on the left, configured for right hand buttons). If it's a long conversation (for example trying to get sense out of a Calcutta call centre) I'll swap hands occasionally.

    I notice it's still only right handed thumb icons available.....

    At least the iphone doesnt risk taking your eye out if you use it left handed, unlike the SA80.

    1. Kevin 43
      Grenade

      The ambidextrous...

      P90 FTW!

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Halo

    Monkey paws

    Still can't figure out how these people are holding their phone. If I try to make a call on mine with my left hand covering the bottom left, I get cramp and almost drop the thing.

    Hold it mid way up the side.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm left handed and have an amazingly simple but elegant solution to this.....

    I don't get caught up im Apples hype, and have an oldish Samsung that suits my needs fine.

  38. Paul Woodhouse

    I'm ambidextrous

    will no one think of me???.....

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