Last week Apple took swipes at Nokia, BlackBerry as well as other smartphone manufacturers during its iPhone 4 news conference, prompting a response from Nokia and BlackBerry holding company Research in Motion (RIM).

 

This week Samsung and HTC added their voices to the group of Cupertino’s competitors who took issue with Apple’s claims that signal strength problems relating to how devices are held is a general one affecting most other manufacturers as well.

 

“The reception problems are certainly not common among smartphones,” HTC chief financial officer Hui-Meng Cheng told the Wall Street Journal. “[Apple] apparently didn’t give operators enough time to test the phone.” 

 

Samsung also stated that it “hasn’t received significant customer feedbacks on any signal reduction issue for the Omnia II,” a smartphone Apple also singled out at its news conference.

 

Apple however appears unfazed and according to The Nokia Blog, Cupertino showed off a new  video of a Nokia N97 mini losing signal strength after being held in an awkward way (see video below).

 

 

 

Google might be dominant in the online search business, but when it comes to its phone retailer section, things are looking bleak. In fact more than simply bleak, as the company has canned its online Nexus One web store. “Sorry, folks...The Nexus One is no longer available for purchase directly from Google,” it states on the company’s site.

 

Residents of Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK can still place an order for the smartphone via their local carriers.

  

 

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Nokia is looking for a new CEO to replace the current chief executive officer Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo by the end of the month, as the Finnish company is failing to compete with rival high-end devices like Apple’s iPhone and Android-based smartphones.

 

Nokia’s second quarter results indicated a 64% drop in profits.

 

 

After social networking site Facebook this week reached the impressive milestone of 500 million users, the company’s co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to be on top of the world despite the current ownership debacle of the company.

 

Hollywood is set to bring out a biopic of the Facebook CEO and now there are even reports of an appearance on The Simpsons. According to New York Magazine’s Vulture blog, Zuckerberg will make a guest appearance on the forthcoming 22nd season of the popular cartoon show as himself, joining a selected group of individuals including Stephen Hawking, Ronaldo and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.