Well, after waiting for two weeks, my “bumper” from Apple has arrived. For $30 you get a cheap piece of plastic that goes around the phone in a strip. It does afford some protection if you drop your iPhone, though, and, more important, it gets rid of the “death grip” antenna glitch by separating the antenna from your hand with aforementioned cheap plastic.
Personally, I think Apple should be giving a free bumper to all iPhone 4 users, but we know that’ll never happen, right? Especially when Steve Jobs’ response to the glitch was, “Stop holding the phone the wrong way…”
So it works. A case would work as well. Anything that separates your sweaty palms from the small black line on the lower left that is the new antenna.