Apple’s Antennagate debacle hasn’t stopped the company from trying to innovate in the area of antennas. The company has been granted a patent for a design for what the company calls a “logo antenna.”
In Antennagate, the antenna in the iPhone 4 was placed in the metal band surrounding the outside edge of the device. However, holding the iPhone 4 in a certain way (the wrong way, Steve Jobs said), could bridge the gap between two different antennas on the lower left of the iPhone 4, causing signal attenuation, data slowdowns, and call drops.
At least, that’s what many end users asserted in videos and posts. Apple discounted the notion, but eventually offered a free case, which seemed to eliminate the problem, to all iPhone 4 users, later adding that it would continue the program on a case-by-case basis.
The idea of an antenna in the logo isn’t new for Apple. For example, the iPad has an antenna in its logo.
In fact, the idea of an antenna in a logo isn’t new, period. A 2003 Dell patent is also called “Logo Antenna.” In that patent, the logo is actually the antenna, while in Apple’s, the logo forms a non-conductive cavity used to hold the antenna.
