It seems that Apple is incapable of making a simple announcement without getting plenty of people riled up. After all, the only thing substantial that Steve Jobs had to say was that Apple would be giving out free cases for the iPhone 4 and that they would not be able to provide bumpers for everyone so users will be given a choice among a range of cases. Those who have already bought a Bumper will be given a refund.

If Apple left it at that, they would be criticized a little for taking so long to announce such a simple non-solution. But it would have ended with that. Instead, Apple is now taking heavy criticism for taking 22 days just to decide on that, and come up with a large overdrawn presentation on why they are not at fault and that the entire industry is suffering from the same problem.

Fortunately for the tech industry, other companies also have a voice. With the Samsung Omnia 2, BlackBerry Bold 9700 and HTC Droid Eris being directly mentioned in the presentation, it was not surprising that RIM was among the very first companies to speak out.

Canadian based Research in Motion announced that the BlackBerry Bold 9700, and all BB devices did not need to have a casing to run properly. Samsung’s spokesperson also stated that their devices have antennas located in positions where it would not come into contact with the user (which compromises performance).

Last to speak up was HTC, represented by their chief financial officer Hui-Meng Cheng. According to him, “The reception problems are certainly not common among smart phones, (Apple) apparently didn’t give operators enough time to test the phone.”

It will be a while before Apple recovers from this major public blunder, in the meanwhile, all three handsets mentioned above are actually pretty good smart phones to switch to if you plan to refund your iPhone 4. Unfortunately, the HTC Droid Eris isn’t available in the UK, but the HTC Desire or HTC Wildfire are equally good alternatives if you’re interested in trying out an HTC Android device.

Well, it is not really over yet. After all, the most that the public got on Friday was that Apple is willing to give out free cases; they also know that the antenna has problems, but they are still not willing to admit that the iPhone 4’s antenna problems are so severe that it needs a real solution.

In short, Apple still wants to get away from this situation with the least possible amount of damage.

What would have been better was for Apple to just admit the situation outright, and present their users with a viable solution options. While it is nice to have a free case (which would, in a way, allow users to use the device with less problems), and the option to have the phone refunded, that still leaves people who want to be able to use the iPhone with no need for a case.

Apple has managed to forget that they have other options to offer as well. The company cannot offer a recall, but they should at least be able to offer a discounted antenna repair program. This will still be a burden on their customers, but at least the problem would be solved directly (as opposed to the free case, which is basically a temporary fix).

Another solution would be to offer a major rebate that would offset the value of having a phone that keeps dropping calls. Because as impressive as apps, multi tasking, FaceTime and other side features can be, the bottom line is that the iPhone is still a phone, and a phone that cannot handle calls properly is a product that is never worth the full price.

One other thing that Apple needs to look at is their PR. Steve admits they do not have a “wall of PR to shield them (Steve and company)”. Steve needs to hire PR, not for themselves, but for their customers.