(Image courtesy of Engadget)

Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage on Friday to make a convincing argument that antenna “death grip” problems are universal among modern smartphones, but not surprisingly, some of his competitors are unhappy about being singled out.

Ars Technica has a recap on Friday’s “Antennagate” press conference from Apple, which has sent some ripples throughout the cell phone world over the weekend. While Apple CEO Steve Jobs claims that reception problems were universal among smartphones -- and demonstrated a few competitors’ models having the same issues, which has created further animosity with at least three of them.

Referring to the saga as “Apple’s self-made debacle,” Blackberry maker RIM issued a statement from co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie which left little to the imagination. “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," the pair stated. "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."

RIM’s co-CEOs also had harsh words for Apple’s solution, which is to hand out free cases to everyone. They claim that their Blackberry devices can maintain “proper connectivity” without cases and criticize Apple for not taking responsibility for their design choices.

HTC and Nokia had less harsh words for Apple, surprising considering that both companies are currently embroiled in patent disputes with Cupertino over the iPhone. HTC chose to highlight their own customer satisfaction with the Droid Eris, which Steve Jobs showed dropping from four bars to zero during his demonstration. "We have had very few complaints about signal or antenna problems on the Eris," a company spokesperson told Pocket-lint. They claim a paltry 0.016 percent of Eris owners have complained to the manufacturer about dropped calls and signal weakness, compared to Apple’s claims of 0.55 percent from iPhone 4 owners.

To make his point, Jobs singled out Nokia for shipping some of their devices with stickers that say “Don’t touch here” in an effort to cut down on antenna issues, but the Finnish company wasn’t having any of that.

"In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held," the company said in a statement. "That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design."

While Steve Jobs may be correct in noting that all cell phone manufacturers face signal attenuation and antenna issues, it appears the Apple CEO has only drawn more controversy by dragging the competition into the problem -- which doesn’t seem likely to go away anytime soon, free cases or not.

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