It became "antennagate" simply because of Jobs' denial
All you have to do is look at the blogs and commentary about the event.
However, as I've stated more than once, for roughly 98% of users, the antenna issue was--no issue. You practically had to force your grip to reveal any effective signal loss. This doesn't mean it didn't affect anybody, only those whose bodies have a lower skin resistance due to any number of acidity or sodium problems. I, for one, can't wear a standard wristwatch of any kind--windup, battery, whatever--because they simply die after a few months. Pocket watches last longer, but rarely more than a year. I have one of those body types yet even I could not force my iPhone 4 to lose signal after I purchased it and to be honest I chose to buy a protective case (with battery backup by Mophie) simply to keep the phone in pristine condition. Compared to a lot of phones I see--especially Android phones--my iPhone 4 still looks brand new after almost 2 years of use. The only dropped calls I ever had with it were specifically my fault for carrying it into no-signal areas. Yes, even with modern technology there are still places even close to cities that receive no signal due to terrain or going underground.
I do blame those users for pitching such a row. It was a very small contingent that complained and those complaints got picked up by anti-Apple zealots to the point it became a media feeding frenzy. Apple made no change to the hardware and the iPhone 4 is still one of the top-selling smartphones around the world, though obviously not as much so as the current 4S. It wasn't a "spin tactic" simply because it wasn't an issue in the first place.
