My thoughts as well. The Apple article seems to be saying exactly what the AnandTech article said:
However, in locales that have less signal, but where iOS
still displays 5 bars, the drop of 24 dB is visualized
much differently. For example, at another test location,
signal without holding the phone is -89 dBm, which is
still displayed as 5 bars. Cup the phone, and you'll fall
all the way to -113 dBm. All the bars dramatically
disappear one after the other, people think they've
dramatically lost all the signal, and you know the rest...
