No recall, but Jobs offers free 'bumpers' to iPhone buyers

Still not happy, iPhone users? Jobs had another solution: Return the phone.

"This is life in the smartphone world," Jobs said. "Phones aren't perfect.

"We haven't figured out a way around the laws of physics yet."

Jobs admitted that the iPhone 4 has more dropped calls than its predecesser, the 3GS, but said it's just a difference of one call per 100. He also said complaints to AppleCare over reception issues have been few, and the phone has a return rate of 1.7 percent -- lower than the 3GS and industry standards.

He also refuted a report in Bloomberg that said Apple's chief antenna engineer alerted him to the problem during the phone's design phase. In fact, he said he first heard about the antenna issue 22 days ago, when blogs began to report the issue and videos showing signal degradation when users held the phone a certain way began appearing on YouTube.

(...) Then Jobs said the reception problem with the new iPhone exists with several other phones, including the HTC Eris running Android and the Samsung Omnia II, which runs on Windows Mobile.

(...) Despite admitting there might be an issue, Jobs said some of the problem seems to be media  hype. He said just 0.55 percent of iPhone users have called AppleCare to report antenna problems while there has been a return rate of 1.7 percent.

So what's the solution? Jobs says already released iOS 4.0.1 Thursday, which fixes the issue of how the phone calculates signal strength.

And if you already bought an iPhone 4 or you buy one before Sept. 30, you will get a free bumper to cover the phone, which reports have indicated fixes the problem. If you already bought a bumper, then Jobs says you have a refund coming your way.