In 2010, Apple faced a disastrous scandal with the launch of the iPhone 4, which caused the company to pay hefty fines. The wireless network signal strength on the phone would drop immediately when the user held it in a way that covered the antenna located on the side of the device. Today, after 15 years, software engineer Sam Henry Gould has uncovered the secret behind this crisis, according to a report published by the tech site “9to5Mac”.

The antenna issue on the iPhone 4 was dubbed “Antennagate,” referring to the scale of the crisis and its impact on the company. Apple had to pay fines and compensations amounting to 15% on every phone sold, in addition to providing buyers with a free protective case.

Apple managed to solve the problem fundamentally in the next version of the iOS 4.0.1 system, which was released a few weeks after the phone, but the phone’s reputation was heavily damaged due to this crisis and the antenna’s location.

Gould says that Apple changed a very small piece of code, less than 20 bytes in size, which ended this crisis and made it less noticeable in their phones.

This code is responsible for measuring the network strength and displaying the corresponding bars. Apple used to show bars at values lower than the actual signal strength, which made the phone display more bars than the real situation.

In the next system version, the company adjusted the code to comply with global standards and display bars at higher signal strength, so the drop was no longer as noticeable as before.

Although this solution did not directly affect the user experience or the actual signal strength, at the time it was enough to calm users until the new generation iPhone 4S was released and the company managed to fully resolve the crisis.