Well, Apple’s iPhone 4 press conference has been and gone and the big news is…there isn’t really any news. Apple are happy with the design of the iPhone 4, despite persistant criticisms of the new antenna design, and have denied that they will be pushing out a software fix to the issue. But, and this is where it gets interesting for iPhone 4 owners, Apple have offered a free case to anyone who purchases an iPhone 4 before the 30th of September. What happens after the 30th? Well, Mr Apple himself, Steve Jobs, didn’t even know the answer to that one yet so we could still yet a permanent remedy to the antenna issue at some point this year.

For those unfamiliar with the story, the antenna issues revolved around the iPhone 4 dropping several bars of network reception when held with the left hand which covers an integral part of the antenna. If you’re in a poor reception area and holding your phone in this way whilst on a call, this could potentially lead to dropped calls. Apple’s ‘Bumper’ case does appear to remedy the problem some what and so with a software fix impossible and a product recall a mere rumour drummed up by scare mongerers, giving out free cases seemed the only solution. Whether this applies to the UK or not remains to be seen but Apple have stated that iPhone 4 owners will be able to register for their free case late next week so all will be revealed.

Whilst on stage, Jobs was quick to point out that this antenna issue wasn’t exclusive to the iPhone 4; the BlackBerry Bold 9700 and Samsung Omnia II can also both suffer from a similar problem. Steve Jobs also noted that on its exclusive network partner AT&T in the US, the iPhone 4 had a 1.7% return rate compared to the iPhone 3GS which had a whopping 6% return rate. So, it would seem that either the problem isn’t affecting the vast majority of iPhone 4 users or they’re simply too busy enjoying the 200,000+ apps currently in the app store to worry about the small matter of making calls.