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RIM on Apple's claims of Blackberry Bold signal loss
- pierrefar 16y agoDid Apple even attempt to provide evidence of the Blackberry having a similar problem?
- ugh 16y agoThey showed a video of a Blackberry that, when gripped, looses bars [+]. If they wanted to really convince me they would have to show me better measurements but I would say that’s evidence, isn’t it? [+] You can scroll down and watch it yourself: http://www.apple.com/antenna/ http://www.apple.com/antenna/
- delackner 16y agoWow. Those videos are powerfully convincing that Apple has handled this whole media frenzy in a perfectly reasonable fashion. The only real criticism here is to say that when the media is wrong, and you know you are right, telling them to shove it is not exactly the most skillful way of spinning the situation. A lot of people now vaguely have an impression that the iPhone 4 has spotty reception. That impression will last much longer than if Apple had attacked immediately with these videos instead of "there is no problem". But keep it all in perspective eh? Just yesterday on the beach a friend was snapping a photo of the sunset with his iPhone 4, saying wow this thing really takes great photos. He also mentioned being concerned about the antenna issue. Yet he was oggling it like it was a jewel. Others present bemoaned not having had the foresight to pre-order. Later in the afternoon another friend was wandering around ranting "where is my iPhone 4!" in increasingly loud and frantic tones, until finally he found it and was reunited with his precious.
- jsz0 16y agoThey showed a video of the Bold 9700 having a death grip issue which probably also effects very few people in real world usage. (13% of 9700 owners based on this site's poll)
- gaius 16y agoI have a Bold 9700 and have never had a problem of this kind.
- mrtron 16y agoI have a Bold 9700 and the wifey has an iphone. I get much better reception than her in bad areas. I also get much better reception and network switching while travelling.
- Terretta 16y agoI have an iPhone 4, live in terrible coverage, when this blew up took it out of the bumper for past two weeks, and can't drop a call even in places my 3GS and Blackberry Pearl couldn't make calls at all... And so? Bandwagons roll on squeaky wheels.
- glhaynes 16y agoThat's the thing: if you try, and hold it at the right place, you probably could have a problem. (In the right location and network situation.) In practice, you most likely don't — or, you do rarely have the problem, but don't trace it to that cause, just as the vast majority of network problems on phones aren't traced to their cause: people just try the call again. The same is true of the iPhone 4. It's just easy to find the exact place where it happens on the iPhone because it's basically marked.
- 124816 16y agoI wonder what percent of those users have a 9700.
- bombs 16y agoIf the antenna is internal (and invisible) how many would even realise they were affecting it in any way? Apple drew a lot of attention to its antenna, both in terms of design and marketing, so how many people reported problems after deliberately trying to screw with it? I just made my iPhone 3GS, Blackberry 9700 and Nokia N97 all drop a couple of bars by covering their internal antennas with my palm. I expect this to happen with any phone.
- DougBTX 16y agoThe point is that you can have the same effect on an iPhone 4 with your pinky.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- tjogin 16y agoThat hasn't been easy to reproduce though. Some people, in some places, but not like the "death grip".
- moxiemk1 16y agoThough the ease of producing the problem on the iPhone 4 is very real, this argument annoys me: No one touches their pinky over that line in normal use. Does it cause a problem? Yes. Does anyone just sit there with one finger on the side of the phone? No. Instead, say that a grip natural to a large number of users causes signal loss.
- CWIZO 16y agoMy BB Bold 900 looses a bar or two if I cover it in a way that it would be impossible for me to make calls then. Never had any issues with it, never drooped a call. But to be fair, I'm in Slovenia in Mobitel's network which is one of (if not) the best in the world. So maybe all this problems come from crappy network services too.
- nixy 16y agoJobs clearly stated that the demo of bars being dropped on other brands of phones was done in an area of bad network reception. If people try the death grip with good network reception they won't see any drop in bars. As I understand, this is the same for the iPhone 4.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- EdsonGould 16y ago"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
- sz 16y agoI wish they would post actual measurements, as in Anandtech analysis articles. A video is nice, but are there any dB measurements out there?
- wandwand 16y agoI tried apples test on my phone and no go.
- sigzero 16y agoI tried it on the 3GS with the antenna inside. It loses bars.
- shin_lao 16y agoSo every telephone can get signal attenuation if you hold it in a certain fashion in certain reception conditions. That sounds plausible, although I never experienced the problem with my bb bold, I'm ready to accept this problem can be reproduced. That's not the issue at hand. The issue with the iPhone 4 is that it's very easy to drop calls and get signal attenuation. The reports are too numerous to be just a sporadic problem. Whether this is a problem in the manufacturing process (which would explain why not all telephones have the problem) or the design, only Apple knows. At first they say there is no antenna problem. Then they say it's a bug in the software. Now they say "well all phones have this problem". I think inspector Columbo would say "Aahh! Of course, all phones have the problem... Now Mr. Jobs, just one more thing..."
- tjogin 16y agoFirst. If the problem is as widespread as you think, how do you reconcile that with AT&T's dropped calls statistics that show that it drops less than 1% more calls than the iPhone 3GS? Second. How do you reconcile it with AnandTech's tests that show that the iPhone 4 is better at keeping calls even with a poor signal?
- Geee 16y agoIt is one or less percent unit more, which means that if the 3GS drop rates are 1%, the 4 has drop rate of 2% which is 100% more dropped calls. I made some research on this and found http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0210022 http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0210022 which says basically that drop rates among 720 different carriers have a lognormal distribution with mean of about 2.4%. iPhone 4 might have better RF and baseband chain to compensate, but it's clearly not enough when the phone seems to lose the signal altogether. Edit: Jobs said clearly that the 4 drops ~1 calls more per 100 than the 3GS. 1 per 100 -> 2 per 100.
- nkassis 16y agoYeah felt that apple was being a little sneaky with how they were putting out the data. Lets assume that 0.1 calls per hundreds was lost on the 3gs, then 1 more is a huge difference, if the 3gs dropped 3 calls than it's still huge but not as huge so without the 3gs drops per hundreds how do we know wtf 1 more means? 1 more is still a ton, an average user probably does more than 100 calls per month so... that's a drop call per month and for people in shitty area that could be multiple a week on the high end (some people never drop calls on the iPhone)
- kwyjibo 16y agoThey should sue Apple for false claims.
- larsalan 16y agoand libel, there is clear intent to damage RIM's brand name and profitability. Steve is a dirty bird like that.
- ugh 16y agoHuh? Were I to find out that Big Mac is people I would tell the press with the clear intent to damage McDonald’s brand name and profitability. Is that also libel? I would hope, anyway, that true claims are never libel.
- carbocation 16y agoIn the US, truth is usually considered a defense against claims of libel. Not so elsewhere, such as the UK, if I recall correctly. (IANAL)
- philwelch 16y agoI would at least hope there's a legal difference between true-and-in-the-public-interest claims like "Big Macs are made of people" and true-but-scurrilous claims like "<closeted gay celebrity> has gay threesomes with rent boys".
- sigzero 16y agoIt isn't false. RIM didn't deny it loses bars when held a certain way. They were just pissed that that Apple showed it to be true. Apple did show it to be true so there is no false claim.
- Geee 16y agoThey are really comparing apples to oranges in the sense that they didn't talk about the iPhone's design flaw, just RF shadowing which is obvious. There isn't any phone other than iPhone that loses the signal altogether by just touching one point on the phone.
- onedognight 16y agoCrackberry's call for duplication Apple's test? Go to an area where you have full bars while holding the phone gingerly, then change that loose grip to a bit more of a death grip. is flawed given that "full bars" can indicate an arbitrarily strong signal. In order to see the effect Apple demonstrated you will most likely need to be in a location where you just barely have "full bars". Why are we linking to a website that either doesn't understand the how the "bars" work on phone or is only trying to add misinformation the discussion?
- statictype 16y agoThe statement itself was issued by RIM. I'm pretty sure they know a thing or two about bars and antenna design.
- sunir 16y agoThey do know and they do have a problem but they didn't address the topic. They deflected the attenuation problem with the Bold and parried by putting the emphasis back on Apple's design. That is how PR works.
- onedognight 16y agoI too am pretty sure RIM knows about about antenna design which is why they didn't deny Apple's claim that many, including their own, smart phones are subject to a grip of death. crackberry (which is what the OP linked to) however insinuate (through their flawed survey) that it wasn't.
- sigzero 16y agoDid you notice RIM didn't deny it?
- grandalf 16y agoI can't reproduce it on my bb curve 9800
- edster 16y agopoint? <sorry, inside joke to one of grandalf other comments>
- grandalf 16y agoHah. Well, I followed the procedure blackberry that I read causes the bars to decrease in the iphone 4. There was no decrease whatsoever.
- megablast 16y agoDo you understand that this is related not just to how you hold the phone, but where you are and what reception you are getting. There are plenty of people (most?) that can not produce this on the iphones either.
- grandalf 16y agoI wasn't attempting to insinuate that all iPhone 4G's are easy to trigger this in, but I wanted to defend Blackberry from the unfair attack by Apple. I have had a few Blackberries and none have ever had any noticeable hand position related signal loss across a variety of signal strength and location environments.
- megablast 16y agoHow is this an unfair attack? It is not an attack at all, it is simple physics. All phones have this problem, the media are focusing on just one phone, because it is more newsworthy. Apple are saying it is a problem with most phones out there, the iPhone is no different. You really see that as an attack.
- glhaynes 16y agoAsk the average iPhone 4 user: would you rather have the new antenna design, which generally considerably outperforms the old design (not to mention all the side benefits such as making the device so thin and strong), or would you like a design like the 3GS back, which outperforms the 4 in one specific circumstance that doesn't seem to affect most people in real usage?
- CamperBob 16y agoSomething this whole sordid saga has made me appreciate is that the 3GS is really a damned awesome phone. It feels good in my hand, it can run IOS 4 without slowing to a crawl, its proximity sensor works well, and it doesn't tend to drop calls or not drop calls based on how it's held. It was designed before Apple got complacent, and it shows. My SO has an original 3G model and it feels a lot slower, even without upgrading to IOS 4. I was going to upgrade both our phones when the iPhone 4 was first announced, but I failed to get our pre-orders in on time, and now I'm sort of glad -- especially since I'm not the one stuck with the slower 3G. :)
- gojomo 16y agoDoes putting the magical and revolutionary attenuation-solving Apple bumper onto a Blackberry Bold help? :)