Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, RIM’s co-chief executives, issued a joint statement in response:

They said, “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.”

Apple’s newly-introduced page on smartphone antennas says that “In our tests, the BlackBerry Bold 9700 dropped from 5 bars to 1 bar when held in a way that attenuated the signal” and points out that the antenna is fitted in the base of the phone. It also compares reception effects on other phones, including the iPhone 3GS, HTC Droid Eris and Samsung Omnia II.

Source: Guardian Technology

The company has refused to give details about whether the event will address reception problems that some users have reported with the phone, launched just last month.

Apple has faced mounting criticism from analysts and consumers over its handling of the issue.

Industry watchers said the firm was in danger of damaging its “rock star” reputation over how poorly it had dealt with what would normally be a minor problem.

Source: BBC Technology

Some users reported the smartphone’s signal strength fell significantly when held, giving rise to speculation its new antenna – incorporated into the handset’s metal frame – could be disrupted by the hand.

However, in a letter addressed to iPhone 4 users, Apple said its own investigation revealed the “simple and surprising” cause was the formula by which it calculated signal strength has always been “totally wrong”.

Apple’s letter said: “Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays two more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display four bars when we should be displaying as few as two bars.”

It continued: “Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying four or five bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.”

The computing giant said the problem has been present since the original iPhone launched three years ago.

It will now adopt American mobile network AT&T’s more accurate method for calculating signal strength and a free software update will be available in the next few weeks.

Source: Yahoo Tech News

O2, which was Apple’s exclusive UK partner for the iPhone, has introduced a monthly cap of up to 1GB (gigabyte) for data on new contracts. This mirrors a similar recent move by rival Vodafone, and Three has also today announced a 1GB monthly cap.

Some observers expressed surprise at Three’s decision to impose a limit. Ben Wood, a mobile phone analyst at CCS Insight, said: “We had expected that Three would seek to differentiate its offer from rivals by offering bigger data bundles. “It has obviously realised that this approach would see heavy data users signing up and clogging up its network.”

Orange has always imposed a 750MB monthly “fair usage” policy since it started to offer the iPhone in late 2009. But some networks vary their data bundle between 500MB and 1GB per month, depending on the cost of the contract a user chooses.

A 1GB cap amounts to approximately two to three hundred MP3 song downloads in a month. And a message on O2’s website says that a user with a 500MB cap could send 1,000 e-mails with photos attached.

But data consumption can grow very quickly when users start to stream video on their Smartphone.

Source: BBC Technology

The 9.7-inch touchscreen tablet, which is designed to surf the Web, play video and games, and read digital books, is the most anticipated product launch from Apple since the iPhone in 2007.

Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad in late January, but the company did not announce any international markets until Friday, when it said the tablet will go on sale in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

Apple shares rose 3.1 percent in early trading on the Nasdaq to $217.20, an all-time high for the stock.

Apple is seeking to tap an unproven market for tablet computers. The iPad, while admired for its sleek design, will have to compete for consumer attention with a myriad of more established device categories, including smartphones, netbooks and dedicated e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle.

The U.S. launch date for the iPad model with short-range Wi-Fi wireless links, starting at a price tag of $499 (332 pounds), is slightly later than the previously expected late March launch. Customers looking for versions of the iPad with third-generation (3G) high-speed cellular data links will have to wait until late April, said Apple.

The company has been demonstrating Opera Mini on a developer iPhone at the Mobile World Congress. As Apple does not currently accept rival browsers onto the platform, Opera has not yet submitted theirs to the App Store – but it does intend to do so at some point, founder Jon von Tetzchner told ZDNet UK during a demonstration.

“It will be submitted, but we haven’t decided when,” he said on Tuesday. “We want to tune the product a little bit more. We wouldn’t be making it if it wasn’t our intention to submit it.”

Von Tetzchner said Opera Mini runs six times faster than Safari on the iPhone when using 3G networks, and runs at least as many times faster over GPRS. “Opera Mini would give Apple’s iPhone users a much better browsing experience, especially in slower networks,” he said.

Source: ZDNet

Apple’s iPhone app review process is inadequate to stop malicious apps from getting distributed to millions of users, according to Nicolas Seriot, a software engineer and scientific collaborator at the Swiss University of Applied Sciences (HEIG-VD).

Once they are downloaded, iPhone apps have unfettered access to a wide range of privacy-invasive information about the user’s device, location, activities, interests and friends, he said in an interview on Tuesday.

In a talk scheduled for Wednesday at the Black Hat DC security conference, Seriot will explain how an innocent-looking app could be designed to harvest personal data and send it to a remote server without the user knowing it.

Source: ZDNet

On the Apple site, the company revealed the Wi-Fi-only version of the iPad will be available in the UK from March. The more expensive 3G version will follow in April.

In the US, Apple has struck a deal with mobile operator AT&T to provide two monthly data plans for the 3G iPad. While UK operators have expressed interest in the device, none have committed to carrying it at the moment.

Source: ZDNet News

On Wednesday, Apple chief Steve Jobs went on stage at the Moscone Center in San Francisco to introduce the device, which handles e-books and email, as well as images, music, video, games and web browsing.

In his presentation, Jobs described the iPad as “so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smartphone”. He also derided the netbook phenomenon, saying the cheap mini-laptops “aren’t better than anything”.

Closely resembling a larger iPhone, the device is fully compatible with existing iPhone applications and is based on Apple’s own custom ARM-based processor, the A4, which runs at 1GHz.

The iPad has a high-definition, 9.7-inch in-plane switching (IPS) LCD touchscreen, which allows for a 178-degree viewing angle – wider than rival screen types – and has 1024×768 pixels resolution. It also supports multitouch input, and optional extras include a keyboard dock.

Two types of iPad will be available: one with 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, and one with just Wi-Fi, Jobs said. The Wi-Fi-only model will ship globally in two months’ time. In the US, its price will range from $499 (£309) to $699, depending on the storage capacity, which ranges from 16GB to 64GB. Versions with added 3G will cost an extra $130 and will ship in 90 days’ time, Jobs said.

“We want to put this in the hands of lots of people,” Jobs said, referring to the pricing for the device.

For the launch, Apple has made a number of partnership deals for content applications. It has drafted in media firms who have created newspaper and magazine apps that can run in-page videos on their virtual pages for the iPad.

The device is also an e-reader, through a new application called iBooks. A new iBookstore lets users download e-books to their iPad, in much the same way as Amazon customers can do with the Kindle Reading Device.

In addition, Apple has introduced a version of its iWork productivity suite tailored to the iPad. Users can create presentations, spreadsheets and documents using a redesigned, gesture-based user interface.

So the iPad can be used for personal information management, virtual painting and for mapping services.

Source: ZDNet News

Deloitte’s prediction fuels rumours that Apple is set to unveil a tablet-style computer at a press event it is hosting on 27th January.

The company’s report, which forecasts the tech trends for 2010, describes tablets as “the Goldilocks of devices (not too big, not too small)”. It said that previous attempts to launch tablet PCs – notably by Microsoft – had been largely unsuccessful for many reasons. “The graphics, software, and user interface were underwhelming, not well connected to cellular or WiFi networks, and, most important, they have largely served as work-oriented data-entry devices.”

“By contrast, an easy-to-use, consumer-focused device used primarily for media and web browsing is much more likely to be widely accepted by the market.”

Source: BBC Tech News