I blame Gizmodo. Surely the tech blogger should have caught this problem and alerted Apple while the cops were searching his home. Jobs should sue Gizmodo for this.

@Andrew_b: that would explain what had happened, but it doesn't excuse them from this debacle..

ars needs to change this headline pronto

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...onstructed.ars

"iPhone 4 deconstructed; antenna design a "work of genius""

Hahaha looks like they'll need another sidetalking.com for the new iPhone

Well, if this really does shake down to be a major problem, it shows that the Jobs way of total secrecy and paranoia is not perfect. The chances are that Apple will learn a lesson from this. Imagine if no Apple employee was willing to risk summary execution as a result of being discovered to have removed the field test disguise, thus leading to an undiscovered design flaw. I mean, they were probably told that removal of the disguise would trigger some sensor or other...

"Hey, let's make the antenna a metal band that wraps around the phone so it's bound to be touched by bare hands in several places. It'll look SO cool - Steve will LOVE it!"

Hmmm...what could possibly go wrong with that plan...

A case for insulation is outta the question 'cause that would trash the ultra-hip look. But I know a stylish yet affordable fix. Just snap on some rubber surgical gloves! Say 'cough please'.

It always blows my mind what gets through testing. Usually the test plan itself is to blame: some engineer omits to check novel features, late changes, etc. The problem I've seen in general is that testing too often assumes best case scenarios when it should assume worst by default.

2 things...

1. Does FCC have a hand in reviewing something like this?
2. Does the 'bumper' accessory hint at Apple already knowing the issue??

i really feel dancing when i open my physical keyboard and the cute sound it makes when i open or close it

One glove only...can't use a capacitive screen with a rubber glove on. The solution is clearly to revive the Michael Jackson look.

Actually, as much as I enjoy the Schadenfreude here, one report I read makes me wonder how big a problem this is. Do the videos show calls being dropped, or just the bars plummeting? The two I saw didn't test with actual calls, just looked at the number of bars. If calls are not being dropped, this may just be a visual nuisance that they will fix (or a real but manageable problem that they will hide) with firmware upgrade for the bar display.