Neil Hughes
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, HTC said on Monday that reception problems are not common on smartphones, regardless of what Apple said at its iPhone 4 press conference on Friday. HTC suggested that Apple should fix its own phone rather than bring competitors into the fray.
"The reception problems are certainly not common among smartphones," the company's chief financial officer, Hui-Meng Cheng, said. "They apparently didn't give operators enough time to test the phone."
But John Gruber of Daring Fireball also pointed out on Monday a screenshot from HTC's instruction manual for the Droid Eris. Page 13 includes an illustration of the Droid Eris, showing the portion of the phone where the antenna is located, and instructing users not to touch there.
"Avoiding contact with the antenna area when the phone is IN USE optimizes the antenna performance and the battery life," the manual reads.
In addition, Samsung also gave comment on Apple's claims, as the Cupertino, Calif., company specifically cited the Omnia II smartphone in a video showing signal attenuation. The company simply noted that it "hasn't received significant customer feedbacks on any signal reduction issue for the Omnia II."
The comments come after both Nokia and Research in Motion also issued official statements disputing Apple's statements from its press conference. RIM said the company's approach was an "attempt to draw RIM into Apple's self-made debacle," while Nokia did not specifically mention Apple, and instead called itself "the pioneer in internal antennas."
Since the iPhone 4 was launched and users discovered they could lose reception by holding it in the bottom left corner, Apple has maintained that any mobile phone experiences reception issues when held improperly. The company, on Friday, said it will address customer concerns with the iPhone 4 by giving away free cases for every customer through Sept. 30.
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240 Comments
I noticed the other day with my iPhone 2G (which I am hoping to replace with iPhone 4 in the next couple weeks) that if I hold it at the bottom the signal is affected more so than if I hold it up higher - more loosely - or set it down. Not sure if the case I used to have made much difference - and I have had dropped calls with the phone in a cradle in the car with the top down. So just saying that although not as obvious or dramatic or easy to reproduce as the iPhone 4 signal bars lost - the iPhone 4 is certainly not the only phone with a similar problem and any statements along the lines of hey leave us out of this are likely to come back to bite those other folks. Should be fun to watch.
I don't remember Steve Jobs specifically saying that mobile phones made by HTC and Samsung lose their signal when touched. His demo showed that the number of bars will drop when you hold the phone in a certain way. He did not say that this inevitably leads to a loss of signal and the inability to have a conversation.
Admittedly, I don't see the connection between the necessity of presenting evidence in court, if a suite against Apple is still not dismissed, and handing the evidence out to ``retarded blogosphere' '.
I don't remember Steve Jobs specifically saying that mobile phones made by HTC and Samsung lose their signal when touched. His demo showed that the number of bars will drop when you hold the phone in a certain way. He did not say that this inevitably leads to a loss of signal and the inability to have a conversation.
Exactly. There is a world of difference between dropped bars and dropped calls.
"In addition, Samsung also gave comment on Apple's claims, as the Cupertino, Calif., company specifically cited the Omnia II smartphone in a video showing signal attenuation. The company simply noted that it "hasn't received significant customer feedbacks on any signal reduction issue for the Omnia II."
All 3 owners must be in good quality areas so......