It’s what you or I might call a recall, though Apple likes to call them “replacement programs” unless they are certain types of issues coordinated with the U.S. consumer product safety authorities.

The affected models are the kind with the white or black plastic front and silver back and were sold between September 2005 and December 2006. Apple said the issue is limited to that first generation iPod nano and doesn’t affect other models.

“This issue has been traced to a single battery supplier that produced batteries with a manufacturing defect,” Apple said in a post on its support Web site. “While the possibility of an incident is rare, the likelihood increases as the battery ages.”

The site provides instructions for checking the serial number and, if necessary, returning the units to Apple for a replacement, which is then waranteed for 90 days.

The numbers, officially known as mobile equipment identifiers (MEIDs), are important in the activation of devices that use Verizon’s cellular network and are designed to be unique to the individual device.

“Duplicate MEID numbers were flashed onto an extremely small number of iPad 2 units for the verizon 3G network,” an Apple representative said on Friday.

Although most of the small number of devices involved were still in the process of hitting the market, a few had already found their way into customers’ hands.

Word of the issue had cropped up on various Apple enthusiast blogs, including 9to5Mac. Apple declined to specify the number of iPads involved. However, 9to5Mac said that one store sent back more than 100 of the tablets.

Apple said at its developer conference on Monday that it has sold 25 million iPads since the original tablet debuted last year and some analysts believe it could sell another 8 million this quarter. However, there have been some issues along the way, including a deadly May 20 explosion at a Foxconn plant in China believed to be manufacturing the iPad 2.

So says a new survey, commissioned by people who would like mobile phone users to pay attention to ads.

MocoSpace, a mobile social network, and Briabe Media, a mobile marketing agency, say 37 percent of phone users they polled are able to recall brands they’ve seen advertised on their phones. Or, at least, they say they can.

The survey results, which you can see embedded at the bottom of this post, are pretty consistent over different ethnic, gender and age groups. Basically, about four out of every 10 people say they can recall ads they’ve seen on their phones.

Those kind of numbers should be encouraging for the mobile ad business, which is supposed to grow dramatically but is still pretty modest.

One important, and/or worrisome, caveat is that poll respondents are most likely to say they remember seeing ads for mobile carriers. The top five most recalled brands are Verizon, AT&T, Wal-Mart, Macy’s and Sprint. (You can see the top 20 in this nifty graphic on the right.)

And perhaps poll respondents are seeing a lot of ads for mobile carriers on their mobile phones. But I wonder if they’re just used to seeing the branding that’s already on their own handsets. Which wouldn’t be nearly as helpful to the nascent mobile ad industry.

Here’s a summary of the research:

TheMobileConsumer_BrandRecall-MocoSpace_Briabe_2-3

The company is recalling 41,000 of its Satellite computers for fear that they may overheat and injure someone. And while that hasn’t yet happened, there have been 129 reports of the computers overheating and deforming the plastic casing around the AC adapter plug. The affected models are Toshiba Satellite T135, Satellite T135D and Satellite Pro T130 notebooks. If you happen to own one of those, go and download Toshiba’s latest BIOS revision, which will determine whether your machine is overheating, and if so, disable its AC power and contact Toshiba for a free repair.

“We now believe there is a 50% chance the company offers a free modification to current iPhone owners and includes the modification on all future iPhone 4s (e.g. a coating around the antenna),” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster told clients today. “We have no knowledge of the company’s plans,” he said, “but we see an in-store fix and modification to future iPhones as the likely scenario (not a recall). Despite these issues, consumers love the iPhone 4; ultimately we believe Apple will manage these issues in a consumer-friendly way and maintain its pristine brand.”

UBS analyst Maynard Um isn’t betting on a recall, either.

“We believe a recall is unlikely as any recall would presumably be more immediate and sales halted by Apple and its operator partners,” he wrote in a research bulletin. “However, if the solution were straightforward, investors are likely to wonder why it wouldn’t be issued by press release (though Apple already addressed the issue in a statement on July 2). We believe an event is necessary, as a press release to address what has become a ‘loud’ issue would likely have drawn more ire.”

And from the shadowy world of anonymous insiders, a “person familiar with the matter” tells the Wall Street Journal that a recall is not in the company’s plans.

Sounds about right. As I wrote the other day, “an iPhone 4 recall? Steve Jobs would rather recall hiring John Sculley.“

[Image credit: Rick Smolan]

About $1.5 billion, says Bernstein & Co. analyst Toni Sacconaghi. That’s about five weeks’ worth of Apple’s free cash flow or about 3.5 percent of its total cash balance. Ugly. But as I noted here Tuesday, the probability of a recall is pretty low, as Sacconaghi himself says.

“A full recall of the device and issuance of a new iPhone…is highly unlikely,” he said in a note to clients, adding that a more appropriate response would be for Apple to simply hand out nonconductive cases or bumpers to all iPhone 4 owners and with all new iPhone 4 sales. “[This] could be done immediately, would directly address the Consumer Reports concern, and would be financially immaterial,” Sacconaghi argues. “While it would force Apple to ‘acknowledge’ a design issue with the iPhone, we believe that consumers are increasingly aware of the antenna issue, and remedying it rather than dismissing or ignoring it appears most appropriate.”

Of course there is another option: Apple (AAPL) could ignore the current hurly-burly entirely, stand by its official statement on the issue, and release the promised software update that will correct it. Certainly, that seems to be the strategy so far.

Though the clamor over a design issue that can diminish the iPhone 4’s signal strength might drag on the company’s shares, as it is today, Apple (AAPL) probably isn’t going to issue a product recall.

Said Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, “We see [a recall] as a highly unlikely scenario given the issue is completely resolved with a case, which is a significantly less expensive solution for the company.”

Citigroup analyst Richard Gardner agreed.

“We consider the probability of a recall to be very low given our view that the issue in question is not serious enough to warrant a recall,” he said in a note to clients today. “While bridging two portions of the antenna with one’s hand on the lower-left corner of the phone does cause signal degradation, it does not typically result in dropped calls unless the signal from the cell tower is already weak. Excluding this issue, overall signal reception on iPhone 4 seems at least as good, if not slightly better, than reception on the iPhone 3GS.”

Over at Barclays Capital, Ben Reitzes offered a similar take. “As users, we have experienced some issues w/call drops; however, we have found drops go away after attaching a bumper accessory, which is quite useful anyway,” he wrote. “To date, we have not seen any overwhelming evidence of iPhone 4 units being returned.” And if the current spate of negative headlines should change that, well, it’s probably not going to have much of an effect on the company’s bottom line anyway.

Said Reitzes, “Worst case is some near-term sales are impacted and/or Apple revises its policy on ‘not giving away’ free bumpers, but usually demand just gets pushed to a slightly later date. Therefore, we do not believe these issues will impact Apple’s product momentum or the story materially at this time.”

To Reitzes, the iPhone 4 antenna issue is “overblown,” a sentiment shared by Munster as well.

“Ultimately we believe this PR black eye takes away some near-term upside potential to our iPhone estimates, but it does not change the long-term trajectory of the iPhone. While the issue has gained significant traction in the press, the reality is that we estimate this problem periodically affects 25 percent of iPhone 4 users given the fix is easy (a case for the iPhone), and 75 percent of customers choose to use a case anyway. While it has reached a boiling point, we believe the magnitude of this issue is being overblown.”

And seriously, an iPhone 4 recall? Steve Jobs would rather recall hiring John Sculley.

[Image credit: Rick Smolan]

Says Sony, “In rare instances, these notebook computers may overheat due to a potential malfunction of the internal temperature management system, resulting in deformation of the product’s keyboard or external casing, and a potential burn hazard to consumers.”

Vaio owners with machines subject to the recall can resolve the problem themselves with a firmware update or by having Sony (SNE) do the repair.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission there have been 19 separate incidents of batteries overheating. Of those 19 incidents, 17 involved flames and 10 minor property damage. At least two people suffered minor burns. All told, the company is recalling about 100,000 2.15Ah battery packs used in Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Toshiba laptops. That’s only a fraction of the 9.6 million incendiary lithium-ion notebook batteries Sony recalled in 2006, which cost the company around $360 million.

But it’s a start.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission there have been 19 separate incidents of batteries overheating. Of those 19 incidents, 17 involved flames and 10 minor property damage. At least two people suffered minor burns. All told, the company is recalling about 100,000 2.15Ah battery packs used in Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Toshiba laptops. That’s only a fraction of the 9.6 million incendiary lithium-ion notebook batteries Sony recalled in 2006, which cost the company around $360 million.

But it’s a start.