Like every other iPhone owner, I update my device to the new iOS 4.0.1 today. After some initial upgrade woes, it was up and running and like everyone else, the only new aspect I could see was the that signal bars are now taller.

But it may have done something much, much more. 

I’m not going to write this on TechCrunch yet because I simply haven’t tested it enough. It’s only on my iPhone 4 and only in my apartment so far. But here’s what I’m seeing: 4.0.1 seems to have resolved the death grip issue on my device.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Now, I say this knowing full well that 4.0.1 brought with it a better reception measuring metric — basically, Apple has been showing you have more signal than you really do for years on the iPhone. The new method more evenly distributes signal strength across the five bars. And the result is that they don’t drop from 5 to 1 (or zero) when you grab the iPhone 4 in the lower left corner. Now, it seems to only drop two bars or so.

But we already knew this “fix” was coming. And the exact break down of how it changes things aesthetically has already been well covered. But people are also reporting that it doesn’t fix the death grip issue. But it’s not clear to me if they’re only saying that because the bars still fall.

Let me be clear: the bars still fall with 4.0.1. But again, instead of from 5 to 1 (or zero), they go from 5 to 3 every time I try. But MUCH more significantly, I cannot make the phone drop the actual signal anymore. The bars fall, but the connection remains. This was not the case before.

In writing my iPhone 4 review and the subsequent posts about the death grip issue, I must have tried to degrade iPhone 4’s signal over a hundred times. I would do it over and over again from multiple places and on multiple devices. The majority of the time, I could get the signal to drop to the point of failure. In Tahoe, where signal seemed stronger, I could not, but that seemed to be the exception.

Every single time I tried in my apartment in San Francisco, I could get it to fail each time. Calls would drop, data would stop.

I can no longer get my iPhone 4 to do that.

Again, this is just my phone and just in one place. But it’s interesting, to say the least. Each time I tried with iOS 4.0, it would fail each time. With iOS 4.0.1, the bars still drop, but the signal remains intact.

The signal is a bit slower, but it remains intact.

I have no idea if this is a fluke — maybe AT&T coincidentally boosted their 3G service in SoMa at the exact same time of the iOS 4.0.1 roll-out — or if this is in fact related to what Apple is going to announce tomorrow at their press conference.

The most interesting thing about that is a New York Times report tonight which indicates that the problem will be fixed by software. They claim 4.0.1 is not that software — but again, I’m not sure if they’re just saying that because like everyone else, they’re seeing the bars drop. 

Who cares about the bars dropping? All that matters is the signal. And now, for whatever reason, I maintain the signal when I grip the iPhone 4 in the lower left corner with iOS 4.0.1.