Catching flak for arrogance and shoddy PR, Apple has whistled up what looks like an emergency triage press conference for hand-picked reporters at 10am Friday morning Left Coast time at its Silicon Valley headquarters.

It presumably means to stem the unaccustomed lost of reputation and drop in its runaway stock price created by its so-called “Antennagate” crisis, an event that Microsoft COO Kevin Turner compared Wednesday to Microsoft’s Vista debacle, or hoped as much.

Apple hasn’t specifically said the supposed intervention is about the otherwise hysterically successful iPhone 4’s travails the last two weeks merely that it’s to discuss the iPhone 4. But nothing is more riveting at the moment than the reports that the antennae embedded in the steel band that encircles the widget cause the phone to drop calls. There has been wide-spread speculation about a mass recall even though complaints are very spotty.

The situation came to a head Monday when Consumer Reports said it wouldn’t recommend the phone even though it loved the thing otherwise. The reportedly hard-to-reproduce problem seems to have to do with how the phone is held.

Sanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi calculates a recall would cost $1.5 billion. The distribution of free rubber “bumpers,” on the other hand, usually a $30 accessory, is projected to cost only $178.5 million according to Piper Jeffray. This Consumer Reports-suggested duct tape cure would cover the gap between the device’s two antennae, which seems to be the source of any problems. Apple itself previously promised a software fix, while telling users not to grip the lower left corner of the phone. Consumer Reports says software won’t fix the problem.

Apple’s numbers are due July 20. At this point the iPhone accounts for 40% of its revenue.