The Live Indian Entertainment Blog

Why did Apple pick on HTC rather than say, Motorola, at their iPhone 4 press conference from last Friday? Well, one obvious reason is the ongoing legal spat between the two companies over patents (and Android). While HTC has not issued a press release like RIM, it has made a statement.

Apple was trying to make a point, that many smartphones suffer signal attenuation when held in a manner similar to the so-called "death grip" issue on the iPhone. The HTC Droid Eris was one of the devices shown (others were the BlackBerry Bold 9700 and Samsung Omnia II, though he also mentioned stickers on the back of Nokias that say "don't touch here," which has been disputed by Nokia).

At any rate, HTC said in a statement to Pocket-lint, that basically the number of complaints for a reception issue on the Droid Eris pales when compared to the iPhone 4:

"Approximately .016 percent of customers," Eric Lin, the company's global PR and online community manager exclusively revealed to us before adding that "we have had very few complaints about signal or antenna problems on the Eris."

Meanwhile, Apple noted that 0.55 percent of iPhone 4 customers had complaints. Both are small numbers, but in comparison, Droid Eris complaints are 34 times less that the iPhone 4.

Also, the Droid Eris is on Verizon rather than the iPhone 4's AT&T, and perhaps that's why users don't see the issue. As Apple said itself, if there's a strong signal, you'll be OK. Of course, that's another argument entirely.