The first slew of iPhone 4 complaints are in, among them that just holding the iPhone 4 a certain way can interfere with calls.

Apple Inc. redesigned the fourth generation of its smart phone, replacing sloping edges with a stainless steel band that wraps around the more squared-off sides. The metal band acts like a sturdy skeleton for the delicate phone, and it does double duty as the device’s antenna.

Some people said the iPhone 4 would disconnect mid-call when the phone was nestled in their hands in such a way that the lower-left corner of the device was covered.

While some iPhone owners reported no problems at all, others say the issue is intermittent: “It’s only every once and a while,” Lawrence Ho, 27, said outside the Apple store on New York’s Fifth Avenue on Friday.