new iphone 4 is still in the box. just bought it from the NYC Upper West Side store 90 minutes ago. called and they had a lot of stock.

the death grip issue is only if you're in a low signal level zone. wife has had a 3G since 2/2009 and i had a 3GS since June of 2009. i knew the 5 bars most of the time was a bunch of BS and something apple put in the software. i also had something similar to the death grip with my 3GS a few times when using it on wifi. while SJ was giving his we're as bad as everyone else speech i replicated the issue on my Blackberry Curve on one half of the room i was in. the other half the room has a better signal

and in my opinion apple knew about it before the release. i though it was strange that they were hyping the bumpers as well and i thought that touching the antenna may cause issues. or maybe it would increase the signal since it would allow the user to be the antenna as well.

a lot of the hysteria is just internet hype. there are PR/marketing firms who hire people to do nothing but post on forums and youtube and whatever. apple is not perfect but i'm 99% sure one of their competitors created the hysteria via one of these new advertising firms

for the serial number i've known about it for a while. when the 27" iMac's came out last year with the yellow screens everyone on MacRumors was tracking the week of manufacture to see if the issue was fixed. few weeks ago Gizmodo ran an article that Genius Bar iPhone 4 replacements were different than launch ones. which is why i wish i had a tally table and instead had to google "week 30 2010" to check the dates