So I got an iPhone 4 on the day it became available at AT&T stores. I was on vacation in Cape Cod at the time and figured, what the heck, I'll call the closest AT&T store to see if they had enough in stock that I might be able to score one. By the time I got there, the 32GB version was sold out, but I decided to go for it and by the 16GB model.
My first couple of calls got dropped, so I was worried that the rumored issues might be real. Over my last four weeks with it, I've had a few more dropped calls than normal and one person commented on me being garbled, but I don't know that I can really say that it's due to some iPhone 4-specific issue.
Anyways, I'm posting this because I am contemplating returning it. Tomorrow is the big day.
Why return it? Well, I am a little worried that there might be real issues that Jobs has downplayed and which they'll quietly correct in an upcoming hardware revision. But here's a brain dump of what I'm considering...
1) The higher resolution, which I was most excited about, isn't all that exciting. Going from 480x320 to 960x640 ought to be insane, right? The move from 160x160 to 320x320 in the Palm OS world was a huge improvement. But with the iPhone I think this huge jump in resolution was hindered by their desire to keep the phone just as small (actually smaller). The screen size hasn't increased, and so the end result is sharper fonts. Yes, you can pull up a full-size web page and *technically* make out the fonts when zoomed out, but you don't want to. The fonts are too darned small! So you zoom in. Well, if you're going to zoom in anyway, the old resolution was just as good. I think the bottom line here is that they really should have released a version of the iPhone with a physically larger screen so that you could really take advantage of that higher resolution.
2) The phone feels like a watch. Lots of glass and metal. It feels rich like a piece of jewelry. But is that how I want my phone to feel? I personally think it doesn't feel as comfortable to hold as the 3GS and it feels more slippery/delicate to hold (and I thought the 3GS felt too slippery!). I fumbled mine early on a couple of times (but fortunately didn't drop it more than a couple of inches) and my brother dropped his within the first week resulting in a small chip of the glass in one corner. The iPhone 4 is technically thinner than the 3GS, but the 3GS' curved back makes it feel no thicker, and more comfortable to hold, IMO.
3a) The front-facing camera is neat but gimmicky. I have no need/desire to have a call where someone is looking at my face or I'm looking at their face.
3b) Having a call where I can show someone what I'm seeing (by having them see what the back camera sees) can be *very* useful, IMO. Prior to the iPhone 4's release I often thought about how I'd like to have a call with my wife where I'm showing her what I'm seeing in real time. I'll be honest...it wasn't because I was witnessing some awe-inspiring sight. Rather, I'm talking about situations where she sent me to the grocery store to buy something and I couldn't quite figure out which brand/size/etc. she wanted. "Turning on the camera" while talking to her on the phone and showing her my options would be incredibly useful. But the iPhone 4 won't let me do that because I can only make use of FaceTime in a WiFi zone, not using AT&T's 3G network.
4) Arguably the most useful thing about the iPhone 4 is the support for multitasking and easy task switching, but I could have had that for free if I stuck with the 3GS. As a long-time Palm OS user I was never a big critic of the iPhone's lack of multitasking. I lived with that reality on the Palm OS and I honestly didn't have too big a beef with it. The Palm OS switched apps very quickly unlike Windows Mobile and the usability advantages over Windows Mobile made me more willing to live without multitasking. 3rd party "hacks" let me at least have quick task switching which, I would argue, was more important most of the time anyway. On the iPhone I really wanted to multitask Pandora, but I also wanted a decent way to quickly switch between recently used apps without having to go back to the Launcher and potentially scroll around. Well iOS4 gave us both which is wonderful. But I was able to install iOS4 onto my 3GS and get both of those features, so I really don't need the iPhone 4 for that.
So what's left? For me, there's one real advantage that the iPhone 4 has that I would miss if I returned it: the camera. The iPhone 3GS' camera was a bit of a let-down for me. Low-light sensitivity was poor and even great lighting situations seemed to produce photos that weren't quite as nice as the best photos I was seeing posted online from Palm Pre users. But with the iPhone 4, Apple seems to have made some modest but significant improvements to the camera. Video recording quality has improved as well. Combined with the mass of 3rd party photo enhancement apps and Apple's own iMovie app, there's less reason to have to carry around a standalone camera/videocamera now. I will say that it's still not perfect. It's a fairly wide angle lens, there's no optical zoom, and while Apple has boosted the megapixels so as to make the digital zoom a little more useful, it's still not nearly enough zoom capability for many situations.
I've probably missed some pros and cons.
I should add that a coworker showed me his new Android phone last week. I don't remember which one it was. It was on Verizon and had a really large screen. Although the resolution was technically inferior to my iPhone 4's, the increased size of the screen made it more useful, IMO. I do like how Google is a more open platform, so there are ways to tether it and I'm guessing there are hack-style apps available for it like "Today-style" screens, etc. (though I honestly haven't looked into that, so maybe I'm assuming too much). OTOH, you can't argue with the fact that the iPhone has the most impressive app library out there. If you're looking for some specialized type of app, chances are there's already a couple of flavors available for the iPhone. And at least one of them is probably free. That's not great news, perhaps, for developers looking to enter the market and sell their wares, but it's obviously great for the end users.
So just to be clear...at this point in time, it's not really about whether I should switch to something else, but simply whether I should just save $200 and go back to using my iPhone 3GS for a while longer. Anyone else contemplating this?
My first couple of calls got dropped, so I was worried that the rumored issues might be real. Over my last four weeks with it, I've had a few more dropped calls than normal and one person commented on me being garbled, but I don't know that I can really say that it's due to some iPhone 4-specific issue.
Anyways, I'm posting this because I am contemplating returning it. Tomorrow is the big day.
Why return it? Well, I am a little worried that there might be real issues that Jobs has downplayed and which they'll quietly correct in an upcoming hardware revision. But here's a brain dump of what I'm considering...
1) The higher resolution, which I was most excited about, isn't all that exciting. Going from 480x320 to 960x640 ought to be insane, right? The move from 160x160 to 320x320 in the Palm OS world was a huge improvement. But with the iPhone I think this huge jump in resolution was hindered by their desire to keep the phone just as small (actually smaller). The screen size hasn't increased, and so the end result is sharper fonts. Yes, you can pull up a full-size web page and *technically* make out the fonts when zoomed out, but you don't want to. The fonts are too darned small! So you zoom in. Well, if you're going to zoom in anyway, the old resolution was just as good. I think the bottom line here is that they really should have released a version of the iPhone with a physically larger screen so that you could really take advantage of that higher resolution.
2) The phone feels like a watch. Lots of glass and metal. It feels rich like a piece of jewelry. But is that how I want my phone to feel? I personally think it doesn't feel as comfortable to hold as the 3GS and it feels more slippery/delicate to hold (and I thought the 3GS felt too slippery!). I fumbled mine early on a couple of times (but fortunately didn't drop it more than a couple of inches) and my brother dropped his within the first week resulting in a small chip of the glass in one corner. The iPhone 4 is technically thinner than the 3GS, but the 3GS' curved back makes it feel no thicker, and more comfortable to hold, IMO.
3a) The front-facing camera is neat but gimmicky. I have no need/desire to have a call where someone is looking at my face or I'm looking at their face.
3b) Having a call where I can show someone what I'm seeing (by having them see what the back camera sees) can be *very* useful, IMO. Prior to the iPhone 4's release I often thought about how I'd like to have a call with my wife where I'm showing her what I'm seeing in real time. I'll be honest...it wasn't because I was witnessing some awe-inspiring sight. Rather, I'm talking about situations where she sent me to the grocery store to buy something and I couldn't quite figure out which brand/size/etc. she wanted. "Turning on the camera" while talking to her on the phone and showing her my options would be incredibly useful. But the iPhone 4 won't let me do that because I can only make use of FaceTime in a WiFi zone, not using AT&T's 3G network.
4) Arguably the most useful thing about the iPhone 4 is the support for multitasking and easy task switching, but I could have had that for free if I stuck with the 3GS. As a long-time Palm OS user I was never a big critic of the iPhone's lack of multitasking. I lived with that reality on the Palm OS and I honestly didn't have too big a beef with it. The Palm OS switched apps very quickly unlike Windows Mobile and the usability advantages over Windows Mobile made me more willing to live without multitasking. 3rd party "hacks" let me at least have quick task switching which, I would argue, was more important most of the time anyway. On the iPhone I really wanted to multitask Pandora, but I also wanted a decent way to quickly switch between recently used apps without having to go back to the Launcher and potentially scroll around. Well iOS4 gave us both which is wonderful. But I was able to install iOS4 onto my 3GS and get both of those features, so I really don't need the iPhone 4 for that.
So what's left? For me, there's one real advantage that the iPhone 4 has that I would miss if I returned it: the camera. The iPhone 3GS' camera was a bit of a let-down for me. Low-light sensitivity was poor and even great lighting situations seemed to produce photos that weren't quite as nice as the best photos I was seeing posted online from Palm Pre users. But with the iPhone 4, Apple seems to have made some modest but significant improvements to the camera. Video recording quality has improved as well. Combined with the mass of 3rd party photo enhancement apps and Apple's own iMovie app, there's less reason to have to carry around a standalone camera/videocamera now. I will say that it's still not perfect. It's a fairly wide angle lens, there's no optical zoom, and while Apple has boosted the megapixels so as to make the digital zoom a little more useful, it's still not nearly enough zoom capability for many situations.
I've probably missed some pros and cons.
I should add that a coworker showed me his new Android phone last week. I don't remember which one it was. It was on Verizon and had a really large screen. Although the resolution was technically inferior to my iPhone 4's, the increased size of the screen made it more useful, IMO. I do like how Google is a more open platform, so there are ways to tether it and I'm guessing there are hack-style apps available for it like "Today-style" screens, etc. (though I honestly haven't looked into that, so maybe I'm assuming too much). OTOH, you can't argue with the fact that the iPhone has the most impressive app library out there. If you're looking for some specialized type of app, chances are there's already a couple of flavors available for the iPhone. And at least one of them is probably free. That's not great news, perhaps, for developers looking to enter the market and sell their wares, but it's obviously great for the end users.
So just to be clear...at this point in time, it's not really about whether I should switch to something else, but simply whether I should just save $200 and go back to using my iPhone 3GS for a while longer. Anyone else contemplating this?
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I went from 4-5 hours of use to 7-8 hours of similar use. Not having to buy an extended battery is almost half the difference of the iPhone 4 alone.
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