So I’ve now had the iPhone 4.0 for just over 2 months and a few . Here are some additional thoughts:
1. Proximity sensor issue is still maddening for me. Steve Jobs acknowledged it in his press conference about the antenna issue, but still no fix. Unsure if iOS 4.1 will fix or not, reports on the blogosphere about the beta are mixed.
2. My biggest complaint about the phone remains the abysmal network service. I don’t think the antenna thing was really ever an issue for me, particularly as I’ve always used a case. It’s really hard to say if the service is significantly worse than my iPhone 3G – but it’s basically been continually atrocious, both in terms of dropped calls and data speed. Certainly not any better and perhaps even worse.
3. Battery life is incredible, much better than the 3G, particularly after turning off all push that’s non-Apple/Mobile Me, e.g. Google services (this is, however very frustrating ). IMHO the battery life on this device is a major advantage over Android phones and likely over the new Blackberry Torch as well.
4. The speed of apps is also significantly better than the 3G. While partially a result of fast-switching, it’s mostly just the processor and RAM, it seems to me.
5. Background apps implementation still seems flawed. Apps you have no need for in the background just remain open if you don’t manually close. They eat up memory and performance.
5. The silent/vibrate mode on this phone seems to have a much weaker vibrate function, this means I miss a lot of calls and texts when the phone is in my pocket, a big annoyance. Others have confirmed this issue. Just seems silly that they didn’t fix this.
6. Facetime – this is very cool, but even with the people I know who have it, we use it rarely. Look for more about this in another post.
7. Free case program – this was kind of unbelievable in retrospect. My favorite part was that they did the selection and ordering of the cases through an iPhone app. “There’s an app for that” too. I got the Bumper case and was quite disappointed that it didn’t fit some older chargers, so switched back to my other case (Casemate Gelli).
8. iPhone 3G fiasco – the fact that Apple let 3G users upgrade to the new OS is awful. I’ve tried to use some friends’ phones who have done this and it was pathetic, unusable. The fact that they Apple has taken so long to rectify this (like the proximity sensor) is embarrassing for them. It seems to me that Apple’s secrecy and associated very closed testing processes seem to have let some major flaws slip through the cracks.
9. iPod touch with 3G? This would be remarkable. If for no other reason then it would allow people to carry two devices, one that is a functioning “phone” and then an iPod touch with 3G data for everything else. Of course, if so, it will still probably be on At&terrible for their data network, so still not ideal….
Overall – the iPhone 4 is a huge improvement over the 3G. Still the best device out there despite the fact that it barely functions as a phone. What a strange device that can evoke such love and such hatred all at the same time.
Related Articles
- iOS 4.1 rumored to fix troubled iPhone 3G (zdnet.com)
- Apple: iPhone 4 Proximity Sensor Issue Still Not Fixed With iOS 4.1 (nytimes.com)
- Apple may release iPhone 4 with revised antenna after Sept 30 (arstechnica.com)
Ron Feldman's Blog 