Nerd riot averted

Apple: The issue known as "Antennagate" has galvanized the Apple public relations machine. Steve Jobs, the technology company's chief executive, on Friday showed the likes of BP and Goldman Sachs how spin-doctoring works. Of course the comparison is unfair: the iPhone 4's flaw is minor and easy to tackle. Still, the rumor mill was getting out of hand, and the usually aloof Apple has made a decent fist of a response.

Apple's problem was simple. When people grip its newest handset with its external antenna in a certain way, it can cause a loss of signal. "Bumper" cases that enclose the antenna solve this problem -- and in a rare act that approaches an unheard of mea culpa, Apple is going to give the cases away. It isn't the most elegant solution for a company that prides itself on design. But Apple judged, properly, that this time form should play second fiddle to allaying customers' anxieties.

The company's seeming frankness -- conceding that the phone drops more calls than the previous handset, but saying the increase is less than one in 100 -- also put the problem into context. Users may expect a lot from Apple, but that kind of result is trivial, especially when set against the raft of improvements in its latest handset.

Sure, Apple hasn't spilled enough oil to kill millions of sea creatures or been the linchpin of an industry that nearly sent the world's economy into a depression. But PR has a place even in those situations. Admitting to a problem publicly and relatively promptly, putting it in context and then doing at least as much as people expect to fix it isn't a bad template for others to follow.