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Ricardo Bilton & Gloria Sin

iPhone 4 proximity sensor could be thrown off by reflective ear canal

By | July 7, 2010, 7:32am PDT

Summary: There have been a number of complaints regarding reception and dropped calls on the iPhone 4 since its release a little over two weeks ago. The latest issue is that smartphone’s proximity sensor could being thrown off by a reflective ear canal.

There have been a number of complaints regarding reception and dropped calls on the iPhone 4 since its release a little over two weeks ago. The latest issue is that smartphone’s proximity sensor could being thrown off by a reflective ear canal. Seriously.

According to the Unofficial Apple Weblog, one poor iPhone 4 owner went to the Genius Bar with woes about the proximity sensor following some dropped calls after the phone got close to his face. The Genius Bar attendant’s response? It was due to too much ambient light in the ear canal, making the sensor brighten the screen. What?!

It is relatively normal when there are unforeseen bugs on a brand new device. Apple’s iPhone 4 is definitely not the only one that has suffered post-release. Just last month, an SD card storage bug was found on the very popular HTC Evo 4G just before launch.

But this is starting to get out of hand already. It’s bad enough that users have to either hold their smartphones in a particular way or find some way to cover the exterior antenna so that it can function properly until the “software fix” is issued. Now iPhone 4 owners have to stop cleaning your ears with Q-Tips. This is just too much.

Has anything like this happened to you with any smartphone?

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Rachel King is a staff writer for ZDNet based in San Francisco.

Disclosure

Rachel King

Rachel King has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted in this blog.

Biography

Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for CBS Interactive in San Francisco. Before serving as a contributing editor at ZDNet in New York City for two years, she previously worked for The Business Insider, FastCompany.com, CNN's San Francisco bureau and the U.S. Department of State. Rachel has also written for MainStreet.com, Irish America Magazine and the New York Daily News, among others. Rachel has a B.A. in Mass Communications and History from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, where she served as art director for the student magazine, Plated.

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