Steve Jobs is currently holding a press conference to talk about the iPhone 4 antenna issue.  Its a carefully crafted message, as are all of his presentations – but its a lesson in how to deal with product issues.  

Admit there is a problem. Put the problem in perspective by giving some numbers on complaints, sales, returns, and comparisons to previous models, etc.  Show testing of other types of smartphones to say its a category issue, not just us.  Then say they want their customers to be happy, offer a generous return policy if a customer is unhappy, and offer a free case to everyone (that’s not a token, cases help avoid the problem).

And its not as if the iPhone 4 has flopped.  They sold 3 million in 3 weeks.