What can we learn from Apple's iPhone 4 mistakes?

Rumours of user problems with the Apple iPhone 4 signal strength surfaced shortly after Apple released the new phone on June 24th 2010. Apple have since made two official responses to this reception issue, recommending that customers do not hold the phone in a certain way and another response suggesting that there is a glitch in the signal strength display.

On the Apple website, an open letter dated July 2, 2010, states that "The iPhone 4 has been the most successful product launch in Apple’s history". It continues: "that we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong". To make matters worse, Apple conclude their letter with the following, possibly regrettable line: "We have gone back to our labs and retested everything, and the results are the same — the iPhone 4’s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped"

This Monday, July 11th 2010, Consumer reports in San Franciso stated that they have found a problem with the reception of the Apple iPhone 4. "Apple needs to come up with a permanent—and free—fix for the antenna problem before we can recommend the iPhone 4". On Tuesday, Investors rushed to sell shares in Apple, wiping £6.5bn of the market value of Apple, amid fears that Apple may have to recall the product.

Apple are now due to hold a press conference this Friday.

With speculation of a full product recall for the iPhone 4 and Apple's golden reputation now affected, what lessons can businesses like ours learn from Apple's handling of this product flaw? How would you have handled this product release problem?

Thanks for reading.