I'm going to be honest here. I'm sick of reading, writing, hearing, even thinking about the iPhone 4 and its supposedly faulty antenna. Apple handed the issue poorly, journalists handed the issue poorly, I never should have written about it in the first place. So I'm going to say it right here and right now. My Dad bought an iPhone 4 yesterday. The reception is far better than that of the 3G. The speed, the screen, the cameras, the OS, and the design are all fantastic. I've tested the phone in 5 areas of different reception and the most I've lost from the death grip was one bar. ONE BAR.

The fact is, Steve Jobs is right. He may not have handled the problem well, but when he calls it a minor issue he is correct. People are getting free cases not because they need them to improve reception, but because they are available. This solution was the correct one given the situation, though it should never have been needed. If a Nokia or HTC phone behaved this way, only the geekiest geeks would even know, and only the most obscure blogs would have offered the story more than a single article.

The point is, Apple brings this sort of media attention upon itself. The antenna design is one barely legitimate chink in the armour of the best phone on the planet. To quote the now famous John Mann

"If you don't want an iPhone 4, don't buy it.
If you bought one and you don't want it, bring it back.
But you know you won't."