(CNN) -- Hours after its iPhone 4 went on sale to excited crowds Thursday, Apple found itself responding to complaints that holding the phone by its metal edge causes mobile reception to suffer.
The company's response, in a nutshell? You're holding it wrong.
"Just avoid holding it in that way," Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrote in an e-mail that was making the rounds on the Web on Friday morning.
An official statement from Apple expanded in less pointed language than Jobs, who is known to occasionally answer e-mails from customers himself.
"Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas," Apple said in a written statement.
One of the new phone's vaunted features is its sleek design -- nearly 25 percent thinner than its most recent predecessor. That's achieved, in part, by snaking the antenna through a metal band around the edges of the phone.
Apple on iPhone complaints: You're holding it wrong - CNN.com
