We are talking about Apple. A premier maker of (usually) great products. It's well documented that Jobs knew the antenna was sub par well over one full year before the phone was released. A high quality product should not be shipped with such a significant design fault. Giving away a free case is a stupid patch... "here, cover up this phone.Wow, you and I interpreted that press conference completely differently. I think the gist of it is, if you are having trouble, here's a free fix. If you are angry, return the phone for a refund. I don't catch any "we don't care about you" in there.
Oh.. and ignore all the bragging we did about how nice it looks. You have two choices now. Carry the phone and enjoy it's looks but it wont' work right, or cover it up and it will do what it was supposed to do in the first place. So I ask .. how is that Not_ telling the customer tough _____?
Angry doesn't even come into the picture. I'm not angry, I simply want what I paid for. I don't want another phone.. I am a hard core Apple enthusiast of many years. It's another reason I find this so unacceptable, because I _know_ that Apple can build good products.
It's all quite simple really...