Assimilation: A Review of iPhone 4

On my birthday, September 9, I walked into an Apple store and asked to be assimilated.

It was a truly magical event.  As I walked down the long hall of aluminum, surrounded by cheering Geniuses in their blue shirts, my heart beat furiously.  Soon, oh so soon, I would have within my possession the grail of all phones, the beautiful and sleek iPhone 4, that phone which makes all other phones seem as pale imitations of phonedom.  I approached the counter, stated my case, laid out my credentials, was judged worthy (after a slight Apple network hiccup) and proceeded out the door carrying the fabled device.  The universe was right and good, a thing of majesty and beauty.

If you've never been in an Apple store, you may scoff at this account, but I tell you, this is exactly what Apple is trying to foster in their stores.  A land of sleek industrial design which seeks to pull you, atom by atom, into a world where the coveted fruit of their hard work is your only goal, idolized and adored by you to the exclusion of all else.  They go a long way to accomplishing that goal.  Hold fast your soul should you ever tread these hallowed halls!

It's been a week since I purchased said device, so I'd like to give you my impressions.

Syncing and Upgrading

I brought my iPhone 4 to work, hooked it up to my computer and synced everything that had been on my tired and worn out iPhone 3G.  Apple has really nailed it, here.  It was a painless process.  In less than half an hour, I was holding a device that seemed identical in OS to my iPhone 3G (besides hardware differences, mind).  It was faster, sleeker, but every single piece of data had transferred.  I was almost disappointed that I wouldn't have to crawl through the depths of the device to set anything up.

Design


It is truly a sleek device.  When I got my iPhone 3G, i thought I had never seen a more beautiful piece of hardware, but the 4 makes the 3G/3GS design seem cheap and plasticy, utterly devoid of inspiration.  This glass and aluminum idol is a thing of utter beauty to behold, I have to say.  All other phones come up short, so far as I can tell, in comparison.

That's not to say that it's without flaws.  Being all glass on front and back, it makes it hard to hold.  Often when I'm talking, I feel the phone start sliding around in my hand.  I keep having to rearrange my grip to keep it from sliding out of my fingers.

I'm also extremely nervous about it, in general.  I know that the glass is hardened, but I can't help but be concerned that I'm going to shatter it.  In fact, when I went into the Apple store, the geniuses at the bar were mulling over an iPhone 4 with a shattered back.  These things can be broken, and I'm much more cautious about using this phone than I was about my 3G.  When I used to place my 3G in my pocket, I would always put the glass against my leg, hoping to protect it to some degree.  No matter how I put my iPhone 4 in my pocket, some glass is going to be exposed to the outside of my pocket.

I've also noticed some slight hairline scratches on the back of the device already.  As I've stated, I've been extremely careful with it, so that just goes to drive home the point even more:  despite hardened glass, it should be handled delicately.

I've already put my order in for my free case, and I can't wait for it to get here.  I'll feel a bit better about things when I finally have this thing at least moderately protected.  Such a shame, though, to cover up a beautiful device.

Speed


Compared to my 3G, this thing is a rocket!  There is now very little lag in the OS.  I can move between apps quickly and things like diving into the texting client take only a fraction of a second.  On the 3G, this was a particularly onerous task, taking up to a minute to fully load.  It's nice to have a usable phone again.

Antenna and Reception


I've experienced the death grip one time and one time only.  My hands were slightly damp from washing them and when I held the phone in my left hand the cell radio suddenly went into searching mode.  If I really squeeze down with the death grip (holding the phone in the left hand with the black bar on the lower left of the phone in the palm) I can see some signal attenuation, but by and large it has not been a problem.

I also experienced another issue I've never seen with my 3G.  Over a period of about 15 minutes, while driving down the road, every call I made dropped suddenly.  The person I was calling wondered just what the heck was going on, as I kept dialing and redialing them.  Whether this was due to the phone or the network, I can't say, but that never happened with my 3G.

Other than those two times, the reception has been fabulous.  Call clarity and quality are awesome.  Folks are telling me I sound better.  The noise cancelling mic is truly awesome.  This is a great phone to make calls on.

Pictures and Video


The camera on this device is amazing.  The stills it takes are phenomenal and with the addition of HDR photos in iOS 4.1 you can really get some amazing shots.  The flash also adds a new dimension lacking in the previous models.  I am starting to think that I might be able to leave my point-and-shoot behind in favor of my phone, and that's an awesome thing, indeed.

This is a silly little picture of a kids toy, but it really serves to illustrate how sharp these photos are.  This was taken with the flash.

But as good as the stills are, video is even better.  The 720p video this iPhone takes is smooth like butter.  The details are crisp and there's almost no jelly-vision, even if your hands aren't too steady when you're filming.  Add in the capability (at the premium app price of $4.99) to edit movies on the device with iMovie, and you really have an awesome deal.

Here's a movie shot with my iPhone, put together with iMovie.  It's of my son's soccer practice.  Such a simple little thing, but it really is an amazing to have done this on a phone.  (Looks like Blogger really compressed the mess out of the movie, here's the original on YouTube)

Conclusion


This is truly an awesome device.  Despite some minor complaints, it is both beautiful and functional.  I will be able to leave behind both my Flip and my point-and-shoot.  I can edit video on it and upload that video to YouTube without a problem from the device.  It's snappy and runs iOS flawlessly.  Upgrading from a previous iOS device is painless.

Truly, I can't recommend this phone more.

The Walled Garden

Let me hereby declare that I love my iPhone. It is useful and wonderful and keeps me connected all the time. I have been using it in lieu of my computer at home for quite some time now. I write emails on it, craft witty 140 character tweets on a regular basis, listen to books on iPod and even play extremely enjoyable games. It is a great experience.

I have, however, begun to chafe under the strictures placed on my iPhone by both AT&T and Apple (often in conjunction with each other).

My gripes against AT&T are especially aggravating. I pay them enough money as it is for the privilege of using my iPhone, why do I need to pay them even more in order to use my iPhone as a modem? It does not seem fair that I will have to shell out an additional $30/month to do what is freely available on other, older and less capable smart phones.

What's worse, if AT&T sees an app as competitive to it's business model, it will limit that app, or flat out deny it! Consider Skype: Skype offers free calls over the Internet to other Skype users, yet AT&T will not allow Skype to make calls over its 3G or Edge networks. They pull the undue competition card.

On the Apple front, a nifty app came to my attention recently that I thought was a truly innovative and awesome use of the iPhone. Given an iPhone 3GS (with its video capabilities, compass and GPS) an "Augmented Reality" app has been developed called TwitARound.

TwitARound looks at the tweets from Twitter in your area and plots them on a map. The AR part, though, comes when you hold your phone up. The app takes your GPS position and your bearing from the compass and lays the tweet on the screen. So, as you move in a circle with your iPhone in front of your face, you can see the actual locations on your iPhone of the tweets as they would appear if the tweets were layered over real life. It's quite awesome and I would like to see more apps like this.

However, because TwitARound accesses APIs which Apple has not, but should have, made public, it cannot be published in the iTunes store.

Apple plays the non-public API card too much. For instance, they did not make their "find my phone" APIs public so that they could charge you a monthly fee through mobileMe. There are already jailbroken apps which can do this, but since they didn't make the APIs public, you won't see legitimate apps show up in the app store.

Call me naive or non-business-savvy, but all of this seems like bad business to me. As a consumer, I want freedom. It's my device, I should be able to do with it as I choose.

So, while I love my iPhone, I chafe. Yes, I chafe.

Update: (on 7/29/09)

First off, it turns out that Apple will release the video camera APIs with iPhone OS 3.1 (per Ars here). Yay for Apple on this one. It's good to see that some of the "hidden" functionality is being exposed. Now, let's see if they expose the "find my phone" API or if they milk it for more money.

Secondly, the app denial shenanigans continue. In a story here (also on Ars) it appears that all apps relating to Google Voice are being pulled and any apps which feature Google Voice are being denied. The scuttlebutt is that AT&T is pulling the strings here. Some disagree, but my vote goes towards AT&T.