Blackberry Dismisses Apple’s Claim

After Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that all smartphones suffer signal loss when held in a certain way, the executives of Blackberry maker Research in Motion (RIM) has released a statement criticizing its rival company for dragging their products.

“It is unacceptable that Apple is attempting to draw our company to its self-made debacle”, RIM chief executives Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis said in a statement.

Few days ago, Jobs defended his company’s newest product iPhone 4 from complaints about its signal loss by saying that all smartphones available in the market have similar reception problems.

According to some iPhone 4 users, gripping the lower left corner of the device, where the antenna is located, will result to a signal loss.

To demonstrate that other smartphones have the same signal difficulties, the Apple executive displayed a video showing that devices from RIM, Samsung, and HTC were losing signal when held in a certain way.

Apple even released an online page to demonstrate the company’s claims over the reception difficulty issue.

In response with Apple’s claim, RIM said in a statement that its “antenna design and radio performance have been proven to be effective for over 20 years”, adding that “the company has turned itself into a global leader in wireless data products.”

RIM added that Jobs’ claim is “misleading” since the company has “always avoided the designs used by Apple, particularly in the iPhone 4, and instead used other innovative designs that would be effective even in areas with lower coverage.”

Meanwhile, Apple has offered iPhone 4 customers with a casing made of plastic and rubber to reduce the risk of dropped calls in areas with low signal coverage.  In response with this action, RIM officials said that their customers “do not need such special casing because Blackberry phones can maintain proper connectivity.”

Despite the complaints from some iPhone 4 users, Jobs said that the issue had been exaggerated and overblown.

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