Crisis management experts seem to agree that an iPhone 4 recall for its "Death Grip" problem is inevitable. However, most analysts believe that the odds of an iPhone 4 recall are small. Still, one took the time to calculate just how much it would cost Apple to do so.

Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi, in a research note on Tuesday, estimated that such a recall would cost Apple $1.5 billion, or 3.5 percent of its total cash on hand. Sacconaghi did call a full product recall of the iPhone 4 "highly unlikely."

Instead, as proposed by many, a more likely solution, according to Sacconaghi, would be a free rubber bumper case in the packaging. While the darn thing costs $30 to buy, Sacconaghi estimated it would cost $1 for Apple to insert one in each box. Makes you feel good about buying a case, doesn't it?

That's great, but we'd probably all get black, wouldn't we?

At any rate, Sacconaghi took Apple to task over its recent behavior. It's a laundry list of items that have driven some (not many!) away from the iPhone.

"Perhaps the bigger, longer-term concern for Apple investors is the emerging pattern of hubris that the company has displayed (you think?), which has increasingly pitted competitors (and regulators) against the company, and risks alienating customers over time. Examples of its behavior have included its limited disclosure practices (Steve Jobs' health; plans for deploying its cash balance), its attack on Adobe's Flash, its investigation into its lost iPhone prototype (which culminated in a reporter's home being searched while he was away and computers being removed), its restrictions on app development, and its ostensibly dismissive characterizations of the iPhone's antenna issues (i.e., phone needs to be held a different way; a software issue that affects the number of bars displayed). The worry is that collectively, these issues may, over time, begin to impact consumers' perceptions of Apple (no, really?), undermining its enormous prevailing commercial success."

All will be better if Apple's change to the signal level display fixes everything. our guess is if it can be fixed in software (and really, it's not just about signal level displays), it will. If not, hang on tight.