It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but so far this seems to be some excellent crisis communication.

I’m actually surprised by that. I always thought of Apple as a fairly undynamic one trick pony when it comes to PR. (The secrecy, suspense, big event and hype cycle.) I should have noticed something when they released their “Thoughts on Music” or “Thoughts on Flash” letters.

(— edit: wow. The top story right now on HN is not some article lamenting Apple’s reaction, it’s cool pictures of Apple’s testing facilities. This is fucking brilliant PR ;)

Will this be the next "intel inside" ploy? Except this time its "Apple's grab for your money inside"? Or "Steve Job's awesomeness inside"?

What was the quote? "The only thing worse than being talked about all the time, is not being talked about all the time". Because bad press can be turned into awesome press.

Yet I can't help but wonder if, by rewarding the behavior with a grand spectacle, they are somehow training the media and the public to pick on them.

Absolutely! They're even helping to memorize their failure by giving it a name (Antennagate).

They're sending a story:

Apple builds new product -> people have problems -> Apple solves problems.

Which inevitably will imply:

Competitors builds new product -> people have problems -> ..

There is no step 3! (badum-chunk!)

Maybe it's just me, but I'm guessing that the main thing that people will remember from this will be: "Wow, I bet Apple's competitors don't have a cool lab like that and that probably means their products aren't as advanced."