To our knowledge this has not happened since Steve Jobs took back the reigns in 1997: Apple has scheduled a press conference for Friday, July 16th, seemingly without a new product to announce.

The safe bet here is that Apple intends to address complaints about potential antenna problems on the new iPhone 4, however the main software “fix” the company intends to provide has already been set loose in the wild with iOS 4.0.1 released just moments ago. This new build of iOS includes a change in the way the device calculates signal strength for display, and also makes the smallest 3 display bars appear larger as you can see below.

Old display on top. Credit: Engadget

Of course, the web is boiling over with guesses about what else Apple plans to do to address the antenna issue, as well as alternate explanations for why Apple would call a press conference like this. Read more