• San Jose Mercury News, The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, July 15, 2010 10:53 AM

Responding to negative press, irate bloggers and flighty investors, Apple will hold a press conference Friday to address, in some unspecified way, the controversy over its antenna on the iPhone 4. Some users and, more critically, Consumer Reports, say that the otherwise much-lauded device drops calls if a user's hand covers the lower-left corner of the wraparound stainless-steel antenna, as we re-reported yesterday.

The Merc News' John Boudreau writes that Apple reportedly will apply a nonconductive coating to the iPhone 4 to reduce the reception problems. If it repairs or recalls existing units, RBC Capital Markets estimates a cost of as much as $900 million to Apple -- with an additional $200 million tacked on every week the problem is unresolved.

In the Wall Street Journal, Yukari Iwatani Kane reports that a recall is unlikely since the problem doesn't affect safety and only occurs for some users in certain situations. But, she writes, Apple could decide to give away its $29 rubber case, solving the problem for $1 to $5 per phone. The larger issue, though, is the price being paid by "the brand image Apple has so carefully built up" as the controversy festers.

All this said, it should be pointed out that there is still three-week wait for the device, which is already in the sweaty, antenna-blocking palms of 1.7 million consumers.

Read the whole story at San Jose Mercury News, The Wall Street Journal »