By In an attempt to contravene any negative image Apple may have bestowed upon their brand after the almighty “Antennagate” press conference Apple held this past Friday, HTC’s brought out their handy book of numbers. Apple claims that – of the three million+ iPhone 4s they’ve sold – just over half of one percent called to complain about reception issues.
Speaking to Pocket-Lint, HTC’s Eric Lin decided to throw out some of their own numbers regarding one of the phones that Apple directly (and very prominently) attacked at the press conference: the HTC Droid Eris. According to him, only .016% of Droid Eris users have ever called customer care to complain about any reception issues with the device.
We’re not sure if this counterattack can be considered valid given the different variables in play (how many Droid Eris units sold vs iPhone 4? How long has each been out? What about the return percentage?) but we’ll always entertain a little PR war between two sides.
apple shouldnt have named other phones period. they should worry more about fixing their own problems.
percentage is valid comparison, number of users does not come into picture. Steve Jobs is getting a bit crankier day by day. Maybe he is losing touch with reality a little day by day. You don’t solve your self-inflicted problems by attacking others. It is almost as if he is angry that the competition posed by android probably forced Apple to innovate faster which ultimately led to this issue.
As James wrote. He beat me to commenting from the time I left the kitchen ):
It’s a percentage. It makes no difference, really, how many units were sold.
Oh yeah, And actually TIME plays into the Eris’ favor as it’s been out much longer than the iPhone4.
Yes and that’s the reason why I don’t buy Apple products. I just don’t like the way they act over there. They think there Sh*t don’t stink. Steve just needs to shout up and quit acting like the Iphone is a gift from his Holy God, “the Apple”.
Google should be your friend, especially if you’re a blog writer. Try searching on ERIS droid reception -iphone (do include that -phone bit to only get results that don’t include the iPhone) and you’ll see the problem is not an illusion. As an iPhone 4 owner, I can duplicate the death grip trick but the overall the signal reception has been far better than my old 3GS.
The real problem is Lord Jobs and his smug arrogance in hyping the new phone with it’s wondrous new antenna design. I don’t recall other manufactures making claims about improving their antenna designs yet Jobs did and made it a selling point. So for Jobs to suddenly point out that other handsets have antenna limitations is disingenuous in light of his previous hype for the iPhone 4’s new antenna design. If he had been up front to begin with and had included the bumper as part of the iPhone 4 package box, this media frenzy wouldn’t have materialized.
Percentage, not total people. Doesn’t make a difference how many iPhone 4 vs Droid Eris users there are.
In fact, I’d probably say the average iPhone 4 user is a hell of a lot more casual then the average Droid Eris owner.
It’s funny that I can smother my Motorola Droid in any spot, even in this low signal rural mountain area in NC and still not drop signal. In fact if you look at all the Apple fanboys trying to replicate this on every other phone, I have yet to see a Motorola Droid doing this.
Apple must think the Droid is a brick, as it says only phones that are bricks do this, despite the Droid being about the same thickness as the 3G and 3GS.
Jobs was picking on the Eris? Ha. I have an Eris, and the only other phone that ever had such great reception for me was the E815. Eris has AMAZING reception, so it isn’t surprising that Eris hasn’t seen many complaints about it.
Steve is such an iHole. Imagine how different things would be if Woz to the helm of the Apple ship. I think Bill Gates was right when he asked “since when has it been fine to lie because your hip or cool?”.
Jobs pointing fingers at other people for faults of his own company phone lol, it is wrong on so many levels, my head hurts actually as we have given him the title of visionary. What does it say about us as citizens ?
Yup, I have had my Eris for 4 months now. Reception has never been an issue. :)
Like I said before Apple was quick to find phones that pulled the same problem but where are the high end phones that are in the same end as the iPhone like the droid, Htc Incredible, Evo, Droid x which has been compared to the iPhone. I don’t see many articles talking about how the eris is it the next iphone killer. Cause they couldn’t find a problem with them phones so it went to the small dogs that sit on the porch.
all of the manufacturers involved in the great antenna war of 2010 are full of shit.they make these numbers up. why should anyone care about these other phones that don’t have the problem nearly as severely and aren’t even sold anymore for the most part?
@su2lly iHole? Hahaha, that’s great.
People as a whole aren’t stupid, most people think Jobs is a tool.
i am so curious about the antenna problem of this typed phone…
Do you know WHY only 0.55 of people called to complain about the iPhone 4 antenna problem? Because the others tried, but they had reception issues :-)
Steve Jobs should just own up to the problem and Fix The F’ing Fone (FTFF)
If you cover an antenna, you will lose reception. That is fact.
Now placing the antenna on an area which is commonly covered, that is a design flaw.
All apple is trying to do is take everyone’s focus off the antenna problem they have by bringing other companies into the mix, And in some ways its working. The other companies are saying how they put some much effort into making sure their phone have great reception and all that they don’t realize that’s exactly what Apple wanted to do and the focus on them is not as bad as it was before. I just hope these other companies realize what Apple is trying to do and can come together and pit apple on blast.
Apple is the only one that decided not to insulate their antenna
Sounds like Jobs has antenna envy.
“…how many Droid Eris units sold vs iPhone 4?”
Total devices sold is irrelevant. The question is what PERCENTAGE of the devices sold exhibited antenna problem?
If antenna issues were more prevalent for the Eris, you would see a higher percentage of the total (regardless of what the actual total is). But, you don’t see that. You see a lower percentage, suggesting that antenna issues are approximate 34 TIMES more common for the iPhone!
@su2lly, “iHole” – excellent! Can we borrow that to describe particularly annoying fanbois?
apollo305 still, I can’t see how corporations would want to buy iphone4’s for their employees after this debacle.
@ ari-free, Points for the use of the word “debacle”! It was perfect, ha ha, Apple is a debacle!
“just over half of one percent called to complain about reception issues.”
Everyone else couldn’t get a signal.
[quote]Apple claims that – of the three million+ iPhone 4s they’ve sold – just over half of one percent called to complain about reception issues.[/quote]
The other 99.5% couldn’t get their calls connected…
I love how this figure actually destroys apples’!! Eris sold way less phones in a much longer period of time and still has such a low complaint rating…that is awesome. Why? Because longer period of time means much longer period for which people can complain. Less phones sold means every complaint actually gets a heavier weight than each complaint on an enormous number. Good job HTC!!
@Drizzle: you hit the nail on the head. Jobs can’t fool everyone.
you know i realize that all phones have conductivity issues with the antenna,when held a certain way,that affect signal strength. however my eris has had some of the best reception that ive ever had in a phone. and i COULD NOT, i repeat, COULD NOT replicate losing signal strenth in my eris. i even used the 2 handed “death grip” and held it on there for 2-3 minutes to no avail. signal dropped from 2 bars to 1 bar, big woop. i think Darth Jobs is full of crap. He’s just hatin cause htc makes better hardware than they do now(N1,EVO,Incedible, etc.) and that android has surpassed IOS months ago in terms of funcionality and performance.
sadly, most of the sheep hang off every word Jobs says. They wont have even heard HTCs reply. They’ll just take his word for it and continue to queue up
This is a terrible, terrible phone. The battery life sucks, the touch screen is difficult, it freezes and lags, and just today it crashed and deleted all my stuff. DO NOT GET THIS PHONE! It seems great at first but then it becomes terrible.
Droid eries is the worst phone i have ever owned.