All eyes were certainly on Apple and Steve Jobs, last Friday morning and the whole world was watching. We all know that he admitted imperfection and acknowledged the iPhone 4 in fact did have an antenna problem. But after showing how other smartphone manufacturers have the same problem, it’s not surprising that the other parties singled-out would have something to say about it.
He made mention of Nokia, Motorola, but then went on to actually demonstrate how RIM’s Blackberry Bold 9700, Samsung Omnia 2 and HTC’s Droid Eris, also suffered “bar drops”.
In a recent post on Crackberry.com, they referred to Apple’s situation as a self-made debacle. Here’s what they posted as being a quote and official response from RIM’s 2 CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie:
“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.”
Do you think that Apple’s announcement is a deflection as RIM says? Do you think Apple was wise to bring RIM and others into the equation? Does the BlackBerry truly have flawless performance as the CEOs say?
Is 14% Significant?
Interestingly enough, Crackberry.com ran their own poll and out of 10,111 respondents 14% said they could replicate Apple’s results of RIM’s BlackBerry Bold 9700, 72% said they couldn’t and 14% said the bars on their Bold dropped but only temporarily then came back to full. The first thing I asked as to whether the poll was statistically representative of the population. Second, I wondered if respondent could repeatedly replicate or not replicate the issue and finally whether respondents were accurate or completely truthful. If the answer is yes to all those, then I ask is 14% significant? What do you think?
According to Yahoo news, Nokia claimed the glory of pioneering the internal technology as early as 1998, explaining how complex internal antenna technology is and pointed the finger back at Apple as playing the “blame game for foolish design decisions”. Meanwhile, according to Pocket-Lint, the HTC Droid Eris, the worst performer in Apple’s tested trio held back on any official explanation hoping that the numbers would speak for themselves, citing only a 0.016% complaint percentage of signal related calls, lower than Apple’s.
Sorry, Wrong Numbers
Now to add insult to injury, both Mashable and Yahoo has similar notations, but I noticed they both incorrectly reported 0.055% as Apple’s percentage of complaints about iPhone 4′s reception, when it should have read 0.55%, (the number is clear as day on the slide behind Job’s head at the 10:19 or so mark of the press conference), making me wonder if HTC’s number also has a slip of the decimal point. Does it really matter?
What’s your take on the antenna issue? What kind of smartphone do you have? Can you replicate the problem? Or should we just acknowledge that there are antenna issues everywhere, some larger than others and get on with life while the manufacturers figure a way to make it better? I’d like to hear from you.
Greg Gazin is the Real Canadian Gadget Guy.
Follow me on Twitter @gadgetgreg
Tags: antenna, apple, Gadget Guy, gadgetguy, htc, iphone, iPhone 4, mashable, RIM, smartphone, Steve Jobs
This is the same thing as a child getting in trouble for something they did in the playground at recess, then tattling on another child for something that he thought he saw them do once. Exactly the same and it’s just plain sad.
If I were the companies that were mentioned by Jobs, I would sue, because he did not offer real scientific proof and he’s obviously more interested in working against the industry than within in – not a team player, just someone who jumps up and down having a tantrum when someone else gets praise (or does well in the same market segment).
Also, there are no such thing as Apple devices anyhow, as they are all made by Foxxcon in China. Foxxcon also makes their own products as well as products for many other branding companies in the industry, such as HP. Woopie, it has an apple logo on it and some proprietary software – it’s still a device manufactured by a company that is not Apple. I am surprised he didn’t just blame the whole thing on Foxxcon, even though I am sure they built exactly what Apple asked for. The issue is not a quality control problem, it’s a true to form design flaw and the manufacturer cannot be blamed for doing what they were told by the design company.
Personally, I rather loathe the way Apple is a parasite in the industry, in the way that they use 100% third party hardware (from silicon to glass) then sell it to people as if they created it themselves. Truth: Apple wrote the software and told the manufacturer how to stick the parts together. As we can see with the iphone 4, Apple is not most experienced hardware designer in the industry. Perhaps they should practice with Lego for a while longer.
Does Sears make the Kenmore brand?