Apple won't recall iPhone 4 despite reception problems, WSJ says

Apple isn’t planning to recall the iPhone 4 despite its well-publicized antenna reception problems, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

We should have official word from Apple soon enough, as the company has planned a press conference for Friday, July 16 at 10 am at its Cupertino, Calif. headquarters. We plan to be there. While there has been a lot of talk about a recall, particularly since Consumer Reports said Monday it could not recommend the phone because of its reception problems, it appears Apple can deal with the problem. Consumer Reports said that if you put a rubber bumper around the metal siding of the iPhone 4, it fixes the problem of dropped calls.

It remains to be seen if providing these rubber bumpers free of charge will satisfy consumers, particularly in light of a Bloomberg Businessweek story today that reported Apple’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, was warned about the antenna problem by a senior engineer. Jobs reportedly chose to ignore the warning.

Apple told the Journal, “We challenge Bloomberg Businessweek to produce anything beyond rumors to back this up. It’s simply not true.” But the Journal also confirmed with its sources that Apple engineers knew that there could be problems with the iPhone 4′s reception as early as a year ago but Jobs overruled them because he liked the way it looked.

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