RIM issued a joint statement from their half-CEOs, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, in response:
Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM’s customers don’t need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple.
MacDailyNews Take: The evidence on Apple’s website proves otherwise. And, yes, when it comes to running a smartphone maker, two heads obviously aren’t better than one.
Beleaguered Nokia also issued a statement:
Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature.
Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.
In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design.
MacDailyNews Take: Again, the evidence on Apple’s website proves otherwise.
UPDATE: 9:40am EDT: Well, that didn’t take long. The sucker parade continues:
HTC CFO Hui-Meng Cheng:
“The reception problems are certainly not common among smartphones. They (Apple) apparently didn’t give operators enough time to test the phone.”
MacDailyNews Take: Again, the evidence on Apple’s website proves otherwise.
Jung-Ah Lee and Ting-I Tsai report for The Wall Street Journal that Samsung said “the company ‘hasn’t received significant customer feedbacks on any signal reduction issue for the Omnia II.'”
MacDailyNews Take: In other words, a non-answer. Here’s some feedback, Samsung: The laws of physics apply to everyone.
Apple has now successfully changed the conversation and already two four suckers have taken the bait, hook, line, and sinker. We await the rest of the also-ran smartphone makers’ responses or stony silences with bated breath. Better start looking for another FUD talking point, iPhone roadkill, present and future.
People that live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
The best thing these companies could have done is kept their mouthed shut.
Since when is product comparison unfair?
If apple is wrong let them sue. Otherwise statements of empty rhetoric mean very little – especially if there is plenty of emperical evidence to support apple’s case.
1st?
I don’t understand. What’s the point of this article? What’s MDN trying to prove?
Yet neither company disputed the video evidence. Hmm.
MDN keeps missing the point…
C’mon folks, we should be holding Apple to a higher standard…. they are supposed to be making products that are far superior to everybody else…
Could you imagine the response if Steve J went out and said; It’s okay if Macs have this really crappy performance, because look, Dells, HPs, Lenovos, Acer all have this crappy problems too.”
I say ‘pathetic’ and if anything, Jobs has lowered Apple to the same level as these other players basically saying that Apple’s no better….
Your Mom never accepted that excuse… ‘But Mom, everybody else is doing it….’
I think the point of this MDN post is summed up fairly clearly in the last few sentences.
So basically… what RIM said right there can be summarized as… nothing.
@Hugh Jass,
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First of all, I dont care what size your rear end is.
Second, “C’mon folks, we should be holding Apple to a higher standard.” I ask WHY. You want better hardware from Apple yet you complain when it charges a little more or whine when it does not to your extra high requirements!!
Must suck to be you. Buy or do not buy, its as simple as that.
Just a thought,
en
@ Hugh Jass
The problem is radio signals “will always” be affected by your hands. There is no getting around the physics of it.
The only way to avoid this is to go back to external stub antennas. Personally I wish they made one model that way so we the people could choose a phone with internal or external antennas.
My kids used a LG Migo kid cell phone when younger. It had dual stub antennas. It got signals inside buildings that you could only dream of.
the apple demo doesn’t seem to be a scientific demo at all — just seems to be deflecting the issue. they would be better off doing a controlled experiment. this useless video proves nothing and makes them look foolish.
This isn’t about antennae design at all. Like Jobs said it’s about physics. No manufacturer has been able to skirt the laws of physics……..yet.
@ Hugh Jass
When Apple is able to circumvent the laws of physics, they will do so. Until then, they will have to live with the fact that the human body absorbs RF radiation and therefore a hand held radio device is going to have it’s efficiency affected according to how you hold it.
To all, Isn’t it called a “non-denial, denial”. AKA All the Presidents Men”??
Just a thought,
en
I love my iP4, but the fact that I can produce this lost of signal does not make me happy. I know other manufacture have the same problem and you can dig up lots of proof on the Internet.
Steve, next time make sure that Apple gives no company a chance to PR iPhone in a negative light. This issue still cast a shadow over the CORE part of any phone- RECEPTION!
Wonderful phone, damaged image.
Nokia, RIM and HTC can’t address the issue based on the facts that all phones suffer attenuation problems to some degree, so they are fighting Apple on the PR front, where facts are unnecessary.
@ Hugh Jass
I think that you don’t get the point.
If you hold a device that has an antenna and you cover that antenna with any part of your body, inevitably will affect reception because your body is an antenna also (a different one that absorb electromagnetic field) and this happens to all devices, from TV sets to radios to WiFi devices.
For all of those smartphones that have integrated antennae, to hold them in some way the reception will be affected. The option? To have outer antennae. But that will affect shape and form factor.
Also, you can get a cap with a parabolic antenna or a tin foil hat, if you want. Contrary to universal belief, there is an amplification of electromagnetic fields with tinfoil hats.
Also:
Shit happens, sometimes®
The drop in these other phone’s bars would have been higher in most other people’s hands. Steve has a very thin hand now that holds less water and other pollard molecules. Want to see a chubby real world hand grab your BlackBerry or Droid phone? Be glad it was Steve’s boney hand on your berries!
Little talked about point:
Grab your desk phone and hold it to your ear (or pretend with something else) and see where the optimal place for an antenna would be. It would be at the top, where all the expose plastic is. However, despite firm compelling evidence, there is still a concern about brain tumors caused by the radio signal from cell phones. This concern forces manufacturers to place the antenna as far away from the brain as possible, which is on the bottom of the phone. This area is normally covered by the hand, and this factor is part of the design. In the large majority of cases, any attenuation caused by this meat cover does not interfere with the quality of call or service. If it does, sometimes shifting your hand or turning your body could improve signal enough to make the effect negligible. This happens with any phone. Apples phones have always been rated well as to exposure to RF radiation to the area around the ear. I would like to hear more on how this effects the iPhone 4 as well as the other smart phones listed.
I have the new iPhone, and can make the antenna thing happen. So what? I got the bumper just in case I ever accidentally “hold it wrong,” although I could have gotten along without it. The bumper is designed by Apple/Jobs/Ive also. It’s sleek, and is not an imposition.
All this noise, this hand-wringing, this never-ending outrage, is coming from people other than those who actually bought the phone. The only point to it is to distract attention from the fact that the iPhone4 is the most incredibly advanced device ever made, so far ahead of every other phone they can’t hope to keep up.
@Moonliner:
Excellent point!
I agree with Hugh Jass, that it is Apples fault. They are suppose to be better than other phones in the smartphone market. For Steve Jobs to say that this is reality with smartphones is not good enough for me. I feel that a hardware fix should be instituted and anyone with reception problems get it fixed free.
Hey MDN nothing on Apple’s web site disputes HTC’s RIM’s or Nokia’s claims. Why? Because they didn’t make any!
Read carefully and you see all they say is they spend lots of time and money on antenna designs. They NEVER say their antennas don’t have the same problem, because that would be a lie. They simply imply theirs are better than Apple’s without ever really saying anything at all.
As for Samsung I expect their legal department to issue a statement saying their rep was talking out of his ass, that it was a company statement and the rep in question is no longer with the company.
@Hugh jass
But apple did take the route where they are held to a higher standard. They’ve offered a response. Now, what will the competition do about antenna attenuation? What will they do about the “next” problem that will inevitably occur? Their track record doesn’t suggest responsiveness. Class action suit attempts now have a much higher hurdle to overcome. If apple has an inkling that they can do much better in the future, (and the incumbents won’t, given their history) then the other vendors will have much more to be worried about. Heretofore, apple may have reasonably thought “there’s limited room for improvement in the basic phone function, so we’ll be better in other aspects (the pocket browser)”. Now apple may be able win on that front too.
I hope Steve wont use this strategy that often, it’s counterproductive. I have used many many phones (including Nokia, Samsung and Ericsson) over the years and I have never had this problem before iPhone 4 (never had probs with iPhone 3G either).
Apple can do better than all of them..talking like this is kinda “wussy” imho.