AFTER USING THE SMALLEST Android phone on the planet (the SonyEricsson Xperia X10 Mini at left) for a fortnight, I can proudly assert that it is impervious to the Deathgrip that Steve Jobs showed with the iPhone 4. Even though Apple's newest phone has twice the antenna array, side-by-side practical tests show it has at least one bar less signal strength than the X10 Mini. This does not detract from the iPhone, however, as most of my friends don't use it as a phone. Instead, they consider it to be a smaller version of a iPad and a victory for consumer choice.
I think the business press needs to take Steve Jobs to task for some misleading comments that he made while trying to draw RIM and Nokia into an Apple mistake. Jobs is famous for distorting reality. His claims about antenna engineering are deliberate attempts to distort the public's understanding of antenna engineering. RIM and Nokia have successfully designed industry-leading wireless data products longer than Apple has designed top-rated user interfaces. There are engineering reasons to avoid designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and Apple's poor performance with the iPhone 4's antenna array shows why. I don't need to encase my SonyEricsson or Nokia phones in smart cases to keep them connected during voice calls.
For a lot of reasons, Apple ensured industrial design subordinated engineering design. And now the world sees what that can mean as Apple rolls out cases to patch up a problem.
Sent mail2blog using my Nokia E90 O2-3G Typepad service in the rain on the M7 near Clondalkin, Ireland.
