BlackBerry maker Research in Motion and Korea's Samsung Electric Inc. has fired back at Apple over its claim all smartphones suffer signal loss when held in a certain way.

"Apple's attempt to draw RIM into Apple's self-made debacle is unacceptable," Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the co-CEOs of the Waterloo, Ont.-based cellphone maker, said in a statement over the weekend.

Samsung, also singled out by Apple CEO Steve Jobs as having connection problems with its phones, said on Monday that it has received no significant complaints related to smart-phone signal reception.

At a rare conference on Friday, Jobs rejected any suggestion the iPhone 4's design was flawed and said the industry shared the reception problem, specifically naming rivals Samsung, RIM and Taiwan's HTC Corp.

"We have not received significant customer feedback on any signal reduction issue for the Omnia II," Samsung said in a statement, referring to its smart-phone model.

Samsung, the world's No.2 handset maker, competes with Apple on smartphone and digital music players but also supplies memory chips for the world's biggest technology company by market value.

Jobs' argument was also swiftly rejected by RIM, which said late on Friday that Apple was trying deliberately to distort the issues surrounding the iPhone 4's antenna design by asserting RIM's BlackBerry had similar reception problems.

Lazaridis and Balsillie denounced Apple's claims as "misleading."

"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," they said.

The RIM co-CEOs said the company "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."

Lazaridis and Balsillie also belittled Apple's offer to provide iPhone 4 customers with a rubber-and-plastic "bumper" case to help alleviate the antenna issue.

"One thing is for certain, RIM's customers don't need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity," they said.

"Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple," they added.