In this business the two most difficult companies for the media to get a hold of are Apple Corp and Research in Motion. So, when Apple said Wednesday that it will hold a news conference Friday concerning its iPhone 4, that’s news.

Typically, an Apple spokesman had nothing to say about the conference, which will be held at company headquarters in Cupertino, CA, so we don’t know whether it will address reported reception problems or Apple's response to those problems.

The iPhone 4 is facing mounting criticism over reception problems tied to antenna design. It will be interesting to see if Apple will be open to a recorded question and answer, or if it will be a canned conference in which journalists receive the corporate line, a kind of “live” news release.

Some analysts like Ed Snyder with Charter Equity Research think that Apple will offer a solution. Snyder told the Wall Street Journal that given the intense pressure and scrutiny Apple has come under on the problem with the iPhone 4, the conference will be about some kind of fix or compensation for the owners of the phone.

More so than with other smartphones, the iPhone’s design exposes the antenna to touch. This means that while many experts are saying a recall is a long shot, others argue that Apple will have no choice, because such a design flaw is essentially unfixable by the average consumer.

Another week, another $200M

Meanwhile, analysis from RBC Capital Markets suggests that each week that Apple takes to resolve the antenna issue could add another $200 million in costs.

To solve the problem Mike Abramsky with RBC has come up with three scenarios: providing cases to three million customers, which would cost $45 million; repairing three million handsets, which would cost $300 million; or a complete recall of the product, which would cost $900 million.

Apple says that using official company "bumpers," or cases, prevents users from touching the metal band on the exterior of the phone, which doubles as the handset's antennas, and will resolve the issue.

Apple has also planned a software fix to address the fact that the iPhone 4 reports signal bars incorrectly. However, that software error will not prevent the loss in signal experienced when holding the phone improperly.