Apple has acknowledged that its new iPhone 4 will lose signal if one corner of it is held in the hand.
The glitch, and a yellow discoloration on the screen, has kept internet boards buzzing since the phone went on sale yesterday in the US, Japan and western Europe.
New owners of the device found that the network signal bars “inexplicably disappeared when they cradled the phone in their hands a particular way,” said the New York Times. “Sometimes, but not always, the cradling resulted in dropped calls.”
In a response to Engadget, Apple said: “Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas.
“If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.”
Separately, Apple said a discoloration on the screen was “residue from the manufacturing process.”
Customers yesterday queued up in New York, San Francisco and Japan for the well-reviewed new smartphone. Japanese operator Softbank ran out of stock late in the afternoon, AP reported