Don’t Hold Them Wrong

This warning has been in mobile phone manuals for years, yet it has only now become a hot topic because of the media frenzy surrounding Apple and the iPhone 4.

Update: It’s a lot easier to update a separate blog, so go visit Don’t Hold It Wrong if you want to stay on top of these or submit screenshots, manuals, videos, quotes, and links that you find.

I’ll update this post, as well as my Flickr set and MobileMe Gallery when I get more screenshots of actual instructions in mobile phone manuals. Contact me to send shots, and if it’s possible, please include the manual’s page number.

Companies that apparently do not include any language or warnings like this in their support documentation: Apple, Google, and RIM. They have well-documented cases of signal attenuation when their devices are held in specific ways. But so far, I can’t find any statements besides Apple’s antenna page, which it notably published only after the problem of the iPhone 4’s signal attenuation boiled over in the media.

Credits:

HTC Droid Eris shot via Daring Fireball
HTC Touch via Bjango
Pantech Impact via thinktwice