Apple Won’t Recall, Will Give Out Free iPhone 4 Bumpers and Cases: Antennagate 2010 May End Soon

On Friday morning Apple held a press conference to discuss the issues with the iPhone 4.  The issues have been reported widely across the Internet, with many taking direct shots at Apple for the antenna issues.  To attempt to put the issue to rest Steve Jobs came out to talk about how happy people are with the iPhone 4.

According to Jobs, Apple has received complaints from only 0.55% of customers via Apple Care.  That number probably doesn’t represent the true number of customers affected, since many likely didn’t call Apple Care to report the issue because they already knew nothing was going to fix it for them.  In terms of dropping calls, according to data Apple received from AT&T, compared to the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4 drops less than one more call per every 100 calls.  So the iPhone 4 stacks up nicely when compared to previous iPhones.

To show that the antenna issue isn’t unique to the iPhone 4, Jobs demonstrated how he was able to get the BlackBerry Bold 9700, the HTC Droid Eris, and the Samsung Omnia 2 to drop bars by holding them.  Steve claimed that the issue will happen in every smartphone, and that no smartphone is perfect.  He added, “we haven’t figured out our way around the laws of physics. Yet.”

After presenting all the data, Steve Jobs announced that Apple will be fixing the problem by letting all users return the phone by September 30, undamaged, if they so choose.  Also, next week Apple will be offering free cases to everyone via the company’s website.  Since Apple has had a hard enough time just keeping the bumpers in stock, Apple will be offering a variety of cases for free to users.  For those who already purchased a bumper, they will be able to get a refund from Apple for their troubles.  To help with the issues with the proximity sensor that we’ve been seeing, Apple claims a fix will be in the next software update.

After the press conference, Apple held a Q&A segment with Steve Jobs, Tim Cook and Bob Mansfield.  During the session, all three men showed that they carry their iPhone 4s bare, without any sort of cases.  Jobs claimed that he gets reception in areas of his house where he didn’t before.  On why there aren’t that many cases available, Jobs said that cases makers have a tendency to leak their designs online, and Apple decided not to share the design of the phone with them before the release to help prevent that.

Full live-blogged coverage of the press conference can be found at GDGT.