Facts — "Where Is Your Phone's Antenna?"
Every claim in the narration and on screen, with its source. Checked 2026-10-31.
| Claim in the film | Source | Wording / note |
|---|---|---|
| "In 2010, a new phone had a strange problem. Hold it by the bottom corner, and the signal dropped." | Wikipedia, "iPhone 4" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_4 | "signal strength of the phone was reduced when touching the lower left edge of the phone"; Apple advised customers to "avoid gripping [the phone] in the lower left corner". The film does not name the phone. |
| "The metal edge in your hand is the antenna." | same | "a stainless steel frame that doubled as an antenna"; the frame acts "as the iPhone 4's antennas". |
| "Each plastic slit splits off a separate antenna." | same | gaps in the band; touching the edge was "bridging one of the two locations that separates the two antennas". |
| "Your hand bridges the slit, and the signal fades." | same | as above. The film does not claim that the hand absorbs the signal. |
| "Phones learned to switch to the antenna your hand isn't covering." | AnandTech, "Apple iPhone 4S: Thoroughly Reviewed" — https://www.anandtech.com/show/4971/apple-iphone-4s-review-att-verizon/2 | the 4S was presented as "the first phone to intelligently switch between two antennas to transmit and receive"; it chooses the antenna with less receive fading. Antenna switching is common in later phones, but no single later model is cited, so the narration stays general ("phones learned to"). |
| 700 MHz and 3.5 GHz bands | Wikipedia, "5G NR frequency bands" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G_NR_frequency_bands | n28 703–748 / 758–803 MHz; n78 3300–3800 MHz. |
| "700 MHz needs about 11 cm. 3.5 GHz, just 2." / on screen "¼ λ ≈ 107 mm", "¼ λ ≈ 21 mm" | computed, λ = c / f, in free space; quarter-wave monopole: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopole_antenna | 700 MHz → λ 428 mm, ¼ λ 107 mm; 3.5 GHz → λ 85.7 mm, ¼ λ 21 mm. Inside a phone the dielectric and matching circuits make the metal pieces shorter, hence "about" and the on-screen note "free-space quarter wavelength". Which piece serves which band is illustrative. |
| Phone outline 150.5 × 70.8 × 8.9 mm; battery label 4575 mAh typical / 4485 mAh minimum | Google Pixel 8 public specs — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_8 ; https://store.google.com/product/pixel_8_specs | only the outline and the battery label are borrowed; the brand is not shown. Aluminium housing: https://store.google.com/sg/product/pixel_8?hl=en-GB |
| Internal layout, antenna routing, number and position of the slits (4) | illustrative model | stated on screen: "INTERNAL LAYOUT ILLUSTRATIVE" and "slit count and positions here are illustrative". Real phones differ in slit count and position. |
| "2010" on screen next to the model phone | — | the model phone is not the 2010 phone (that one had a stainless-steel band); the narration says "a new phone", not "this phone". |