iPhone 4 and iOS4

This is the most recent update of my continuing iPhone Review.  If you want to see any of the older portions of it click here.

It is about that time again: time for another iPhone hardware and software refresh.  Amazingly enough I am still with this phone after almost three years.  This is all thanks to Apple’s steady hardware updates and frequent software updates which include new features that keep me interested in the phone and the platform.

First I want to talk about the reasons I use the iPhone over the other options out there.

• The iPhone and its accompanying software are both extremely elegant.  There are very few rough edges anywhere to be seen and I really appreciate that.  Sure, there may be some features that other phones have or had first but in terms of polish I doubt there is anything that comes close.  I am sure that the other options out there are catching up.  That is what happens in a market.  Bring it on.
• Apple is committed to ongoing support of this platform. Before the iPhone it was extremely rare if not impossible to find a phone maker that supported both hardware and software in an ongoing and unified way.  There are several options out there now that do this but I think Apple has done the best job of it.  There has been a major OS update each year alongside a hardware update.
• It does the things I want my phone to do well. Multimedia is well integrated.  My experience with AT&T has been very good.  I don’t have the dropped call or data connectivity issues that others have experienced.  The web browsing experience is great.  I can read a book on the go.  If there is something you want the phone to do that isn’t baked in, there will be an application that will cover your need.  I also really enjoy the multitude and variety of quality games on the iPhone platform.  It is a true multimedia device, not just a phone.

As of right now those are my reasons.  If another platform comes along that fits my needs better then I will switch.

On to the iPhone 4 itself.

First let’s talk about the physical design.  This may sound weird, but the iPhone 4 is the most attractive gadget I have held in my hand.  Everything from the materials it is made from (glass and metal) to the way the buttons work is simply amazing.  The front and back of the phone are made from a hardened glass material that is supposed to be fairly scratch resistant, not scratch proof.  Care and a case will still be needed to keep it from getting beat up.  The edges are a stainless steel material that looks great and doubles as an antenna.  Form and function in one.  Very nice.  The iPhone 4 is noticeably thinner than its predecessors yet it has nice heft to it which makes it feel sturdy.

The internal hardware has received a large upgrade as well.  Apple doubled the memory from the 3GS and iPad up from 256MB to 512MB in the iPhone 4.  This means more things going on at the same time and aids in the HD video capture (more on that in a bit).  The processor has received an upgrade as well to the same processor running the iPad.  In normal OS use I didn’t see a huge increase in speed but it seemed a bit faster.  The new processor really helps out when loading large apps like games.  Apps that might take 5 seconds to load on the 3GS now load almost instantly.  Other tasks like loading up an ebook was noticeably faster as well.  A welcome update.

The most important hardware piece from a user standpoint on a touch screen phone is, without a doubt, the screen.  This is what you will be interacting with for the life of the phone so it had better be good.  The screen on the iPhone 4 is nothing short of amazing.  It continues to wow me with its crisp text and clarity.  Why is it so good?  The resolution of the phone is 960×480 which means that there are enough pixels per inch that you can’t see them.  I don’t think I can stress how big a difference this feature makes in usability.  I have been reading a book via the new iBooks app and have had no trouble reading for an extended time period.  Not only does it look good it is very touch responsive just as all previous iPhone have been.  The screen on the iPhone 4 is incredible.

Another big upgrade to the iPhone 4 is the camera.  It is sporting a 5 mega pixel camera (up from the 3 mega pixel on the 3GS) and it captures great images and not just for a phone.  They are great images period.  Coupled with a flash and a low light sensor the iPhone can now take very competent shots in dimmer areas.  It also has a 5x digital zoom that increases the camera’s flexibility. Along with a better camera comes the ability to shoot smooth HD video (720p).  I got to use this feature quite a bit this last weekend when my 6 month old nephew came into town.  It captures great videos which will turn into great memories.  The camera and video capture both work as advertised with no hiccups.

This brings me to the larger battery in the iPhone 4 which, I have to say, I am quite impressed with.  Under normal use (for me that means internet browsing, book reading, listening to music and podcasts, playing a few games, checking email, and texting) the battery lasted over 33 hours without seeing a charger.  That is a great result considering that my 3GS would have been shot after less than 20.  Very impressive.  To top it off it recharged in less than three and a half hours.

One of the big things that Apple is touting about the iPhone 4 is Facetime, a way to do video calling using the new front facing camera.  Apple has been talking about this feature (video calling) like it is something new.  My response is yes and no.  No, video calling is not something new.  It has been around for a while but hasn’t really caught on.  Yes, in terms of Facetime’s implementation, with a caveat.  There is no signing in to a service.  When you are on a call and want to switch to a video call you click the Facetime button and there you are.  It is smooth and works great.  The caveat is twofold: as of now you must be on WiFi and you must own an iPhone 4 in order to use Facetime, two very limiting factors.  Since Facetime is an open standard other platforms can make use of it and I hope they do.  And I am sure that Facetime won’t always be tied to WiFi.  But for now it is.

There are quite a few new hardware features on the iPhone 4 but those are the biggies for me for now.  The new gyroscope may be well used at a later date but as of now it is pretty useless to me.  I have also noted that the speaker quality is much higher on the iPhone 4 than with previous versions.

Let’s talk about some issues with the phones that have come up recently.

Many people have noted a signal/antenna issue.  If you hold the phone a certain way your bars seem to disappear.  I have been able to replicate this issue but I have also found that call clarity is not affected.  Despite what the signal strength indicator shows I have not had signal problems.  But still, how did this slip through?

There have been quite a few reports popping up about the fragility of the phone.  There have been pictures all over the tech blogs showing broken glass on the front and back of the iPhone 4.  Apple is good at delivering quality products but that doesn’t mean they are unbreakable.  As with any device you should be careful with it or it will break.

Alright, let’s talk about the features in iOS4 that matter to me.

• Folders – Organization of apps on the iPhone has been clunky in the past.  It wasn’t too bad at first but as the App Store grew I ended up with more and more apps.  I think at one point I had eight pages of apps.  That is a pain.  I pared it down to around five or six pages before Folders came along.  Now, with folders, I only have two pages.  I really like this addition.
• Fast App Switching – Switching between apps before wasn’t too bad.  But it was a little clunky.  Now, with a double tap of the home button, you can switch to recently used apps very quickly and easily.  On top of that, as long as the app supports it, the apps are saved when you exit them so that when you switch back to them they come back just the way they were when you left.  I am sure the more I get used to it the more useful it will become.
• Multitasking – Before iOS4 if you were listening to Pandora and wanted to check out something on the internet your music would stop playing because you had to exit the application.  No so anymore.  Most situations when you want to exit an app but have it continue doing something in the background will work.  All this while maintaining battery life.  A great solution tailored to a mobile device.
• Faster Camera – This is a little biggie.  Cameras on phones are notoriously slow.  When you are trying to take a picture of, say, a baby and you are waiting for that perfect moment it will usually pass you by because the camera takes its time.  Not so anymore.  It is very much an instant thing.  I am very happy with this little-big improvement.
• Background Images – To me this is a small thing.  But it is a thing nonetheless.  It is nice to have a picture in the background instead of a black nothing.  That is all.
• Editable iTunes Playlists – This is simply more functionality in an already very functional iPod application.  You can now create new playlists (besides just the “On-the-Go” lists) and edit ones currently resident on your phone.  More options are better in this case.
• Unified Inbox/threaded messages – Email has always been usable on the iPhone but just so.  Now they are adding more functionality in the way of unified inboxes and threaded messages.  You can now have all your mail from multiple email accounts show up in a unified inbox.  Very handy.  Emails that are response to others show up in threads which makes following a conversation through email very easy.  Both very welcome additions.
• Orientation Lock – I check on the news before I go to sleep that means I am laying in bed.  If I happened to roll over on my side the screen would rotate when I didn’t want it to.  Rotation lock fixes that.  It is located on the far left of the fast app switching dock (just a double tap of the home button away).  This has turned out to be very handy and the rotation lock is on most of the time.

These are the main things that will have a great impact on the way I use the phone.  Are there more things they could have added?  Sure thing.  Am I happy with what they did add?  Sure thing.

I have one more thing to talk about.  iBooks.  I am a book reader.  I love the feel of a physical book so knew that transitioning to another medium would be hard for me but it is something that I at least wanted to try.  I have almost completed reading a book on the iPhone 4 and I am impressed.  I do not want to switch completely away from a physical book but I can see the appeal of reading on a device like this.  It is nice to be able to look up a word instantly or to make a note about a particular passage.  Do I want to read on a device like this all the time?  No.  Can I read on it sometimes?  Absolutely.  And I think it will continue to grow on me.

I want to quickly address some of the previous issues I had with the iPhone and its software and let you know if any of these have been fixed.

• Battery life – As mentioned above this has been taken care of in a big way.  Solved
• Multitasking – Again, taken care of.  I think the way the iPhone balances battery life with multitasking is a great way to handle it on a mobile platform.  Solved.
• Adobe Flash – Still non-existent.  I wish the option was there although there have been fewer and fewer times that its omission was felt.  With HTML5 on the rise this will become even less of an issue.  But I still wish the option was there.
• Ability to use the phone as a USB drive – Again, non-existent but I don’t really care if they add this functionality or not now.  I have found a better solution.  Dropbox.  There’s an app for that.  If you don’t know what Dropbox is you really should check it out.  Solved.

Here are some areas that I think still need improving.

• Notifications – This is an area that many people are asking for improvement in.  I don’t have a huge problem with the pop up notifications that exist now, but I do know that it could be better so the system could use a facelift.
• Facetime – I can really see this service being very useful but because of its limitations (iPhone 4 and WIFi only) it just isn’t yet.  Remedy those two things and it could be great.
• Widgets – I would like to be able to look at my phone for quick information like weather.  Right now there is no good way to do this without loading up the app.  Also, the lock screen seems like some seriously wasted real estate.  Widgets on the lock screen would be nice.  Throughout the OS would be nicer still.
• Settings shortcuts – This could go along with widgets.  It would be nice to have quick access to some settings that are buried in menus right now.  How about a screen you can drag some setting widgets to.
• Home Screen options – This has been alleviated somewhat by the new Folders features.  But it would be nice to set whichever screen you want to be your home screen.  For example, if you had 5 pages of apps it would be handy to set the third one as the home screen so that when you clicked the home button it would take you to the middle screen instead of the far left.  Spotlight could also be changed to a swipe up or down from any screen providing much quicker access to searching.
• Data plan caps and additional fees – This involves AT&T more than Apple but since they are in an exclusive relationship this relates.  AT&T has moved to cap data usage.  This will not be a huge issue for most people and will, in fact, save money for most users.  Fortunately I still have my unlimited data plan since I had it before they changed to the capped plans.  But, if I ever want to use the tethering feature (which has an additional fee associated with it) I would have to change to the capped plan.  I don’t like the implications of this.

So there you have it.  My take of iOS4 and iPhone 4.  What do you think?  What do you like about it?  What would you change?