iPhone 4: What now?

When Apple holds its press conference regarding iPhone 4 on Friday, we will either get a lesson in publicity or a lesson in humility. The company is known for being great at one and not so great at the other. I'll let you guess which is which.

Consumer Reports dealt Apple a painful blow this week when the publication decided it could not recommend the iPhone 4 due to antenna and reception issues. We came up with the same results in our tests. This is not something Apple can be flippant about, but the company is in uncharted territory given that they are not used to having to make apologies.

I won't attempt to predict how Apple will handle this performance problem. A recall seems a little extreme and I don't need a mea culpa out of the mouth of Steve Jobs. I would just like a little authenticity in communication from a company that doesn't like to communicate on any terms other than its own, an anomaly in the communications age, to be sure.

Other links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

• Hulu Plus launches on the PlayStation 3 with an exclusivity deal through the end of the year
• Sony launches what it calls the first HD camcorder with interchangeable lenses
• Google launches a Web site to track its efforts to bring fiber to your community
• Google Maps can now send directions to over 20 different cars
• And more Google--the company may be testing a way for you to log into several accounts from the same browser simultaneously