By now you probably have heard that the brand spanking new Apple 4 iPhone has a problem with its antenna. Seems that when you just hold the phone (in a way that most people would hold it), you actually cover up the tiny built-in antenna, which has a very negative impact on reception.

In other words, a lot of dropped calls happen with this “state of the art” new fourth generation iPhone.

None other than Consumer Reports publicized this big flaw in its recent review of the Apple’s new flagship phone. Because of the antenna problem, CR could not — and would not — give the new phone its recommendation. (Interestingly enough, CR apparently did give the new Apple phone its highest rating of any other smart phones it reviewed, which says nothing good about the other products evaluated by CR!)

Now, on the eve of a press conference that Apple has called for tomorrow, Friday, July 16, the Wall Street Journal today comes out with a pretty damning story. Apparently, as had been reported and speculated on some blogs, Apple knew about the antenna glitch for a year, and still decided to ship the defective iPhone because the all powerful CEO Steve Jobs still thought it was fine. I guess Jobs didn’t want a little glitch to screw up his party.

The news is that Jobs overruled his engineers who pointed out the flaw a long time ago. The WSJ story also claims that Jobs wanted to get the phone out so quickly that he bypassed the usual testing time.

All horrible ideas on Jobs’ part. Of course, there is no one at that company who can counterbalance, no less counteract or overrule, Saint Steve. Jobs’ iron fist control over everything at Apple (product development, marketing, news, PR, etc.) is well known. But, the negative ramifications of his intense micromanagement were not really fully understood or appreciated until now. Today they are writ large.

I am sure Apple will try to spin this major problem at its press conference tomorrow by saying the antenna problem is minor, and people just need to adjust how they hold the handset. Or they might offer some kind of lame carrying case that somewhat ameliorates the problem.

That ain’t gonna work, Steve!

The Journal’s piece made clear that Apple is not doing a recall of the defective phone.

Would you buy one? I certainly would not.

I guess Apple and Steve Jobs are not perfect after all. It will be interesting to see if they learn anything from this massive mistake. I frankly doubt it.

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