The Iphone 4 Antenna, Steve Jobs, The War, The Fight

By Muhammad Faisal

A very curious and hilarious topic going around these days is between IPhone 4 and Steve Jobs. Apple having a good market share has messed up big time, which is the Antenna issue in iPhone 4 and its competitors are seriously behind it.

Personally, a friend of mine has even shared his first-hand views with iPhone 4 and yes this is a real existing problem the users are facing with this device but to be very honest, the whole scenario has been just blown out of proportion.

I have personally observed Steve Jobs and have concluded that he is a person, who cannot accept a NO or a drawback and precisely the reason why we keep hearing so much about iPhone 4 issues.

Let me go with the issues in step by step and create this topic more interesting for you.

After the launch, complains were filled against yellow spots or white spots on the display, the strong screen it claimed failed too and Signal Reception, this was just the beginning. People these days are tech oriented too therefore the reception problem was discovered very soon.

As soon as you hold your device with your left hand so that your hand touches the corners, the reception bars are all the way down.

Here we have the first statement from Steve Jobs

“Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.”

Steve Jobs attitude of don’t hold it that way was not acceptable to the public because obviously you don’t choose how to hold a phone, you just hold it and the positions are real time. Further pretending it’s not a big issue or a design flaw aroused many of the other issues.

Later Apple gathered a press conference dedicated on the iPhone 4 reception issues and played a puzzle in it. At a point Steve Jobs was seen quoting that every phone has a weak point and even further claimed everybody makes mistakes but also said Apple is quick to fix their mistakes and thus have loyal users. Apple wants its users to be happy and as people ran for their free cases, courtesy of Apple with the statement of “not because they have messed up, but only because they love their users”.

Apple was still not satisfied and even took a big risk of creating real time enemies for itself by starting to point out and accusing RIM’s Blackberry Bold 9700, HTC Driod Erics, Samsung Omnia II & Motorola’s; mentioned in the conference. Apple claimed that they also face the same antenna problems and demonstrated with the videos of each phone and the ways of holdings at times of lack in reception even with images.

Obviously the companies Apple accused so conveniently would have stayed back…!

The Co-CEOs of RIM (Blackberry) statement

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

HTC’s statement

That only 0.016 percent of all HTC users have complained about the Droid Eris and only a few of them have experienced with the device’s antenna and signal.

Samsung’s statement

The antenna is located at the bottom of the Omnia 2 phone, while iPhone’s antenna is on the lower left side of the device. Our design keeps the distance between a hand and an antenna,”

Shin Young-joo said.”We have fully conducted field tests before the rollout of smart phones. Reception problems have not happened so far, and there is no room for such problems to happen in the future,” he added.

Motorola statement

Sanjay Jha, the company’s co-CEO, responded that “consumers don’t like being told how to hold the phone … It is disingenuous to suggest that all phones perform equally”. He also added that unlike Apple, Motorola avoids placing the antennas on the outside of their phones since that could cause reception issues.

Nokia’s statement

Nokia was out of the picture but still it stated a very offensive statement which I guess Apple should be ready for as Steve Jobs chose to point out fingers.

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.

As I mentioned previously Apple does not take NO for an answer and further was not able to show a faulty Nokia handset in the conference explored more and more and turned to figure out one of the Nokia’s cell phone flaw with the demonstration via video and images in Nokia N97 Mini.

The war has started as seen above and we are pretty much sure this will not end up good lately as Apple has officially launched a page whereby  Pointing out Names of Brands, to even me this came as a shocker but yes this is official now Click Here.

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