BGR has managed to get a notice issued by Apple to its employees asking them NOT to offer any free bumpers to those customers who has issue with signal reception on their phone. The recently launched iPhone 4 has been causing several signal reception issues to the customers. The new design of the phone puts the antenna into that stainless steel band running around the edges, so covering the black strip at the lower left corner makes the bars drop.
The notice reads like a script for the AppleCare folks. They have to tell people that gripping almost any mobile phone in certain places will reduce its reception. No warranty service, and escalate only if the trouble shows up when the phone is not being held. Then the line everybody is quoting, “We ARE NOT appeasing customers with free bumpers – DON’T promise a free bumper to customers.”
So the advice stays what Apple told us last week, avoid gripping that corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip, or simply use one of the many cases out there. Which means buying the Bumper yourself at $29. AnandTech put up their iPhone 4 review today and even they say Apple should be giving that bumper away with every phone sold. Will Apple change its mind?? Stay tuned.
Partly reconstructed with AI. This post’s full text was lost when the site went offline. Only its opening paragraph survived in the Internet Archive, and that opening is the original writing. The rest was reconstructed in 2026 by an AI assistant from reports published at the time, and fact-checked against them. Sources used: appleinsider.com, news.wirefly.com, macdailynews.com, csmonitor.com, ilounge.com.
