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.
Above is the full statement from RIM Co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie.
Sounds harsh, yet nowhere in that torrent of words do they deny the Blackberry Bold has a death grip issue. Good thing, too, because it most certainly has one.
I have an iPhone 4 and can reproduce the death grip; once I knew how to hold it, it was easy. But I also own a BlackBerry Bold 9700. Guess what? Now that I know how to hold it, I can reproduce the issue with it, too. In fact, my tweet about it came many hours before the Co-CEOs published their non-denial denial.
But what about the Bold owners who swear they can’t reproduce it? I guess we pay as much attention to them as the iPhone 4 owners who say they can’t reproduce it, either. Fair’s fair, right? I’d like to point out that I’ve never dropped a call on my iPhone 4 or Bold, both sans cases, so the real world counts for something.
It’s a shame that even with two CEOs RIM weren’t smart enough to let this go, choosing instead to get all puffed up while not even denying what they presumably got puffed up about in the first place.
Meanwhile, the reason RIM “has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4” is because Blackberrys are relics from a half-decade ago. The most “innovative” thing RIM’s tried to do in five years is add a touch-screen to a track-ball based OS, and they failed miserably. Both times. This is why they’ve been giving their phones away—buy one, get one free—for nearly a year.
The good news for RIM is that people are so disinterested in their out-of-touch (pun intended) relic that the Bold won’t get near the attention Apple’s innovative iPhone has. This is one time where RIM’s inferior product will actually help them.
The Small Wave. 
How long before we see a Blackberry with the antenna on the outside? Yep, crybabies. Get ’em some diapers.
John,It only drives it to 0 (or 1 bar) when the signal is weak to begin with. It’s just that a weak signal can still register at 4 or 5 bars, so the drop appears pretty dramatic. I couldn’t agree more that this has been overblown by the press. I’ve had my iPhone 4 over a month, and my Bold maybe three months, and as I pointed out have never dropped a call on either one holding them without a case. Bottom line, in the real world this is a non-issue, and I believe Jobs’ hard data supports that. Honestly, had no once showed me how to reproduce the issue on either phone, it’s likely I’d never have noticed. What galls me is RIM jumping in with this little crybaby bit as if they’ve been “wronged”, when all Apple said is that all smartphones have weak spots, and he showed where a few of them are. There’s lots of You Tube videos showing other phones’, including Blackberrys’ weak spots, too.RIM, without even denying what they’re supposedly mad about, would have you believe they’ve bent the laws of physics so their antennas—and only theirs—are somehow impervious to this phenomenon. Nonsense.Oh, and if RIM becomes the first company whose antenna engineers do get around this, I hope by then they have better designers and developers so the resulting phone won’t still be a relic.
My understanding is that holding a cell phone the wrong way will reduce the signal by a given amount, it doesn’t drive it to zero. If you are in a strong signal area it may be that reducing the signal by holding the phone may not be enough to cause it to drop one bar.This is particularly true if the phone’s first bar is the widest. Apple pointed out that the algorithm they were using until recently had such a characteristic. The top bar had the widest width. The signal had to drop quite a lot before you dropped to four bars or less. This made it unlikely to show off the grip effect.The software update did nothing to change how the antenna works. It changed the algorithm for calculating bars. Anyway, this whole thing has been overblown by the press.
‘This is one time where RIM’s inferior product will actually help them. ‘Priceless..LOL