Yesterday Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple – makers of the iPhone, held a press conference at Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California to address concerns regarding numerous reports of antenna issues plaguing the recently released iPhone 4. “Antenna-gate” as it has come to be known is an issue which affects the iPhone 4′s ability to maintain signal strength when held in a “death grip” (although it looks like a normal grip to me) which results in dropped calls. The thirty minute speech from Mr. Jobs, which is preceded by one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard, comes off in a highly defensive tone, perhaps rightfully so. However as opposed to addressing what mistakes Apple may have made in their latest design Mr. Jobs decided to take the stand that not just the iPhone 4 is prone to this issue, but rather all smartphones in general. Mr. Jobs then went on to specifically mention Nokia’s, Motorola’s Samsung’s, the HTC Droid Eris and the BlackBerry Bold 9700 as all being guilty of signal loss when held in a similar fashion. Nokias’ response came first to these allegations, followed shortly by a response by Research In Motion (RIM) co-chairs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie.

“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

After watching Mr. Jobs relentlessly beat a dead horse for thirty plus minutes during this press conference I certainly was glad to see RIM release the above statement, refusing to let Apple drag down competing products by trying to universalize their own design specific problems. I have personally never experienced any type of signal issues involving how I hold my phone with any of the BlackBerry devices  (or Nokia’s for that matter) that I’ve ever owned or even used, and further more I certainly would not want to rely on the use of a outer case or shell simply to insure that my phone would be able to function at the most basic level, but that’s just me.

So, what do you think BlackBerry users? Have you ever experienced the “death grip” signal loss issues? Is Apple out of line pointing fingers at other smartphone manufacturers? Is a outer shell a reasonable fix to this problem? Leave a comment and let us know what you think about this… More to come.