Not limited to 140 characters here – I got to play with my buddy’s iPhone 4 this weekend. I had about 20 minutes to play with the phone… so anything longer term might change some of my initial impressions, but as an iPhone addict for 2 years now, I can say I was initially swayed by the iPhone 4. Then I played with it…
First – Pros:
it’s solid. Rock freaking solid. It’s just feels substantial (in a positive way) I wish I could find a better adjective. I cant imagine HTC building a phone that feels this good. It feels more compact, yet heavier than mine. Very impressive.
Aesthetically – very pleasing. My one gripe with the 3G/3Gs is how rounded it is. I wanted a macbook style iPhone since day 1. I wanted this concept to materialize:
so I think they hit it out of the park with the design. The individual buttons for volume opposed to the toggle – so Leica. So sexy.
"Retina display" – while the marketing name is stupid as hell, I pulled up the NYT on my phone, and on the 4. Holy crap. Just amazing.
iOS4 – while I can run this on my 3GS, I shouldn’t state this as a bennie of the iPhone 4 – but the iOS4 is solid. I love some of the new features.
Neutral:
HD video capture. Have you ever viewed a video captured with this phone? Any slight shake is almost seizure inducing. And IMO, the HD amplifies it. So I’m no fan of the HD video capture. Though I do think it sets the bar a bit. We need a solid video camera with WiFi and YouTube integration built in. Maybe Apple will force Canon or Sony to give usable integration technology in a video camera.
Retina display: when you’re not looking at text, it looks just like my 3GS.
Capacity – really Apple? 32gig is the biggest we can go? Another year of in solid state memory development, and 32gigs is all I can get? But … you … have … that … 64GB in the iPod Touch … right … over … there. Give me a 64 gig, or get out of town. (neutral b/c I’ve only used 20 gig on my current 32 gig model. But with HD capture now, that’ll change).
AT&T – one provider sucks. Whereas I’ve had ZERO issues with my AT&T service, and consider the reps awesome, any time you’re limiting buyers to one network, you suck. (more on that below)
AppStore – great for the apps I want. Crappy since I’m a developer and want to write iPhone specific apps. Apple’s seemingly subjective approval process is limiting my enthusiasm.
Cons:
Based on my opinion – the 3GS is the perfect sized phone. I could even enjoy a phone a couple millimeters larger (but I fear the EVO is just too big). But Apple chose to make the 4 smaller, and couple it with the same dimensioned screen. Huge drawback here. Even my wife (generalization: women prefer more compact devices) thought it was too small. A bit larger, with larger screen, would have been a HUGE improvement. But I don’t want another device for 2 years with the same screen size – especially with how much I use this thing.
I honestly feel this was a conscious decision by Apple – done to drive iPad sales. Again, fine. But the iPad does NOTHING for me. I want a slightly bigger phone.
The screen is almost too responsive. I opened 3 apps while simply trying to swipe across screens. 2 year iphone user, and I was having issues with the responsiveness of a swipe vs an icon click.
Apple: The reception issue is a perfect example what’s wrong with Apple. It’s not a design flaw. P’Sha. How could you even imply Apple, the greatest company in the world, would have something as stupid as a design flaw. You’re holding it wrong.
The drones of Apple supporters: Duh. Why didn’t I think of that? I’m holding it wrong. Steve said it’s all me, so it’s all me! The Apple fanatics just annoy the piss out of me and really turn me off Apple products as a whole.
FaceTime being a "new" standard. While being open – it’s just another annoyance of Apple. You can talk with anyone, any time … <fine.print size="ultrafine" read_speed="extra_fast"> they_just_have_to_be_on_iPhone4_and_you_both_have_to_be_in_good_WiFi_hotspots </fine.print> -> have you seen the HTC Evo making Skype calls on 3G? I have. It’s cooler than FaceTime. Period. Apple, you lost. Apple fanatics – you’re stupid for being so "wowed" by second rate technology.
Battery. Not replacable. And while it’s getting good reviews, you know the drawbacks here.
Closed ecosystem / bad development environment. Objective-C sucks, XCode IDE sucks. I don’t care how fanboyish you are – languages have evolved since 1997 … except Objective C (and maybe PHP), you canNOT think Apple is raising the bar with the development environments. And you’re not even allowed to use a better language. You’re stuck with what Apple wants you to be stuck with. Then there’s the AppStore subjective approval process. Finally – while 180,000 apps sounds great in marketing speak, 179,500 of them are useless. And when you’re wanting to build a new application for the iPhone, the chances of it getting lost in the sea of that 179,500 is pretty freaking great.
Have you heard of Swype? So cool. So *not* going to be on iPhone b/c it uses a 3rd party library (unless Swype figures something out … which they will, I guess)
Notification system. Popups with "OK" buttons is *so* Windows XP. I thought you knew that Steve. And what about the 3 alerts I got in a row, and OK’d too quickly … what was that second alert? I think it was important. But I have no history of my alerts. Thanks. For. Nothing.
AT&T – I fully understand no unlimited data. I do. However, 2GB? I don’t care how you want to spin it from a corporate perscpective. I’m a web / software professional. Plus I’m a geek. Plus I’m a dad. And I use 1.3 GB / mo consistently with my 3GS with no HD stuff, no Netflix app, etc. And guess what – now I have HD and now you’re talking Netflix. Great. There goes my 2 GB. If you’re going to cap – that’s fine – but make it a reasonable cap. 5 GB sounds good. 4 GB sounds doable. In full disclosure – being a current customer, I’d get grandfathered in on the unlimited plan … so I probably shouldn’t use this as a con, but it just seems wrong.
More of the same – opinion here, but aside from the retina display and the construction, can you really give me a huge reason to get the 4? And it will be a YEAR before they come out with something next. Seems like Apple has dug their own grave here.
I recently played with the HTC Evo. And if it split the difference on size with the iPhone, I’d have it right now. I thought the UI was solid, and the open-sources’ness of Android seems to be going the way side with the HTC SenseUI. I hear there’s rumors of the HTC Scorpion on the horizon. And I’m sure a couple more. I really want to check these devices out when they launch (September’ish?)
On a final note – have you noticed AT&T is being very liberal with their upgrade policy this year? Have you also heard that the ETF for Smartphones has changed at AT&T? It’s now $450 I think, and it’s NOT prorated anymore. My theory: AT&T lost their exclusivity with the iPhone, but they convinced Apple to hold off until Q4 to launch it on Verizon. AT&T is using the next 4 or 5 months to secure as many people on the new contracts before they lose their corner on the iPhone market. Verizon is rollling out their 4G network using LTE technology – which (IMO) is better than WiMax – will get a huge leg up on the competition once this news is released. Plus, Apple is going to have another huge boost in sales when all the Verizon folks get the chance to upgrade. Buy Apple and Verizon stock now. ;-)
Thanks to the reader for providing these candid comments. Based on his wishes, the author’s name has been hidden from this article
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