We are not amused
RIM and Nokia were the first to issue statements. RIM's one was penned by its co-CEOs and published by crackberry.com:
"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."
- Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie
Engadget soon got hold of a more general statement on antenna design from Nokia:
"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."
CNBC, published an irate statement from Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha:
"It is common knowledge in the industry that antennas on the outside of products have known issues, and despite the fact that they lead to smaller phones we have avoided them because consumers don't like being told how to hold the phone.
"While the whole industry has to deal with phones being held in different ways, it is disingenuous to suggest that all phones perform equally. In our own testing we have found that Droid X performs much better than iPhone4 when held by consumers."
Lastly, Pocket-Lint got a comment from HTC that it has had hardly any complaints about the Droid Eris, and the WSJ got the following statement from Samsung: "Based on years of experience of designing high quality phones, Samsung mobile phones employ an internal antenna design technology that optimizes reception quality for any type of hand-grip use."
In summary, we can see what Jobs was trying to do. He wanted to address a matter that Apple had lost control of in the media, but at the same time he didn't want to concede that it was as big a deal as many had made it out to be.
But he didn't need to either attack the reporting of it or drag his competitors into the matter to make this point. By doing so, Jobs revealed a level of petulance that we wouldn't have previously associated with Apple. A chink in the Apple armour has been exposed and, if anything, this press conference makes it even less likely that many media will ‘play ball' in future.
