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Sent to you by Bill Boulware via Google Reader: An iPhone Lover's Take
On The iPhone 4 via TechCrunch by MG Siegler on 7/3/10



Regular readers will know that recently I've liked to state my bias in
the title of my mobile device reviews: I love the iPhone. Some will
call that being a fanboy, and that's fine. But really, it's just my
opinion that the iPhone is hands down the best mobile device out there.
If there were a better one, I would use it. But there's not. So I use
the iPhone. And that's the angle I take towards these mobile device
reviews. It's simple: if you want to be the best, you have to beat the
best. Well, one finally has: iPhone 4.

Yeah, if you hate these types of reviews, you're really going to hate
this one.

Before I dive into specifics, I'll say right away that the iPhone 4 is
easily the best mobile device I've ever used (notice I didn't say
phone, more on that later). But a lot of you probably already thought
you knew I was going to say that. The more interesting question may be:
how does it compare to the other iPhones? Or, perhaps even better: is
it worth it to upgrade? The short answer is yes.

In my view, iPhone 4 is the biggest leap forward that any iPhone has
taken yet over the previous generation. It's not really any single
thing that makes me say that, but it's the combination of changes to
the hardware. The screen is much better. The camera is much better. The
video quality is much better. The form factor is much better. The
device is faster. It can do more at once (thanks to double the RAM).
The battery lasts noticeably longer. And, of course, it has FaceTime.

The main upgrade of the iPhone 3G from the original iPhone was the 3G
chip which brought faster download speeds. The main upgrade of the
iPhone 3GS from the iPhone 3G was the CPU speed increase and the
video-taking capability. All of those were nice upgrades. But again,
the iPhone 4 offers much more from a hardware perspective. And that
makes it worth the upgrade from an older iPhone, as well as worth an
outright purchase if you're new to the platform.

I wrote down my initial thoughts about the iPhone 4 after playing with
it for about 20 minutes after the WWDC keynote in June. This time, I
wanted to play around with the device for an entire week, using it as
much as possible before I wrote up a full review. Now I have, so here
it is.



The Screen

The element most played up by Apple during the WWDC keynote was the
iPhone 4′s screen. And rightly so, it's fairly amazing. The so-called
Retina display offers 960×640 pixel resolution at 326 pixels per inch.
And it has a great 800:1 contrast ratio. Those specs make it great for
both reading text and for watching video content or looking at pictures.

The screen is so sharp that when you're looking at it, it almost looks
as if you're looking at a sticker overlay that they may put on a
display unit at an electronics store. It looks more like you're looking
at a printed out picture than an electronic display.

But here's the curious thing about the screen: More than a few people I
showed it to thought it looked great, but wondered what was exactly so
different from the previous iPhone screen. Part of that is because the
previous iPhone screen was already good. But then I showed it to them
side-by-side with the iPhone 3GS screen and they were blown away.

If Apple really wants to emphasize the screen, I recommend they do the
same thing in Apple Store. Of course, then they may have a hard time
selling the iPhone 3GS.

But when you do put them side-by-side, it's easy to see just how much
sharper text is on the iPhone 4. And just how much better colors
appear. If you bring both close to you eye, on the old one you can see
the pixels. On the new one, you can't. Just look at the picture below —
I don't think I have to tell you which is which.



As I said, previous iPhones already had pretty solid displays, but they
had since been passed up by the screens on a few Android devices. For
example, I love the Nexus One's screen, which is 800×480. But the
iPhone 4 now destroys that. And, as a bonus, you can actually see it in
daylight (which the Nexus One's use of OLED makes very difficult).

The Speed

The iPhone 4, which uses Apple's A4 chip just like the iPad, is
definitely faster than the iPhone 3GS. However, the most part, it's not
noticeably faster in the same way that the iPhone 3GS was noticeably
faster than the iPhone 3G. But it is in some cases, such as photo
manipulation. One of my favorite apps is one called CameraBag (you can
find it here for $1.99). On the iPhone 3GS, it can take several seconds
to apply various filters to pictures in this app. On the iPhone 4, the
same tasks take about a second.

Likewise, some games are noticeably faster, even those not yet
optimized for iOS 4 or iPhone 4. Also, the few lags that previously
existed in things like typing are now gone as well.

When you're on WiFi, browsing the web can actually seem like a faster
experience than doing so from a desktop computer. This is undoubtedly
mostly thanks to the proliferation of iPhone-optimized sites. But
still, for getting at raw information, the iPhone is now faster in
quite a few cases, I've found.



On top of the new chip, another factor in the speed boost is like the
512 MB of RAM now included in the device (double what it was in
previous iPhones — and double what is even included in the iPad!). But
more than speed, this helps with the iOS 4′s new multitasking
capabilities. In the week I've been using the iPhone 4 with iOS 4, I
haven't noticed the device having to quit any app I've loaded that
takes advantage of fast app switching. Of course, that's sort of the
point, you're not supposed to notice this. But with the iPhone 3GS
running iOS 4, I have noticed a few times when an app has to restart
when I switch back to it.

But the biggest speed difference for the entire device has to be the
vast improvements to upload speeds. I like to send pictures I take from
my iPhone to Flickr via email. On the iPhone 3GS, this takes a while,
as each picture tends to be a little over a megabyte in size. On the
iPhone 4, sending these pictures is so much faster — and that's despite
the files being much larger (thanks to the new 5 megapixel camera).

This upload boost is thanks to the iPhone 4′s use of High-Speed Uplink
Packet Access (HSUPA), a 3G data protocol which can boost upload speeds
by as much as 10x. If you do a lot of media uploading from your phone,
this alone may make the new iPhone worth it.

The Antenna

While we're on the subject of connectivity speeds, there's no point in
beating around the bush any longer — you likely want to know about the
antenna issues of the iPhone 4 that have been widely reported.

At first, during regular use, I didn't notice anything abnormal about
the device with regard to its connection. Of course, I also live in San
Francisco where AT&T offers up shitty connections as standard practice.

Then I started reading all the reports and decided to see if I could
get the signal to drop myself. Sure enough, I could. I even tried it on
a second iPhone 4 in a different area — same result. When wrapping your
palm around the lower left corner of the iPhone 4, at least on the two
devices I tried, the reception bars definitely start to drop.

I also tried making calls and using data while doing this. In both
cases I was able to push the connection to failure when I would shove
the iPhone into my left palm. Calls would drop and data would stop.
When I released from that specific area of the phone, things would
start working again.

But then I decided to try something out. I did the same thing with the
iPhone 3GS — and guess what? Same results. Granted, it is much hard to
push the connection to this point of failure on that device, but it can
be done (by wrapping your hand around the entire bottom of the phone,
where the antenna resides). Interestingly enough though, when I would
do this on the iPhone 3GS, the signal would degrade, but the bars
wouldn't fall. Perhaps this is why no one noticed this issue on the
iPhone 3GS but they are noticing it now (though other videos show the
bars falling on the iPhone 3GS as well).



Yesterday, Apple finally issued an official response to this antenna
issue. The basic gist? It's a software bug. More precisely, they claim
that the iPhone software currently incorrectly shows signal strength to
be better than it is. A software update is supposedly going to "fix"
that. Of course, that's not really a fix at all for the actual signal,
it's just a fix for being misleading about it in the first place.

This seems to go against Apple's earlier suggestion that you hold the
phone a different way or use a case (both of which, of course, imply
there is something to the idea that the design of the new device
impacting the signal). That said, I spent last weekend in Lake Tahoe
which has areas of decidedly better AT&T service than San Francisco.
There, I didn't notice the same falling bar issue, even when I held it
in the corner (it would sometimes drop one bar, but not more). Others
have noted this as well — when you're in an area with good service, the
bar loss doesn't seem to be an issue. When you're in an area with bad
service, it is an issue. So more accurate software should at least
solve the bars being high enough to drop in the first place.

But all that being said, there is still clearly something to this
notion that holding the phone in the lower left corner degrades signal
quality. My tests show it, dozens of other tests have shown it as well.
And Apple even somewhat acknowledges it, saying this is an issue with
all cell phones to some degree.

Here's my take on this (and while I'm no expert, this seems to be
pretty common sense): Apple's software update should alleviate some
concern about the signal drop by being more accurate in the first
place. But the signal drop when holding the phone is very real — again,
just as it is on other devices like the iPhone 3GS. The fact that the
iPhone 4 is the first phone with the antenna on the outside of the
phone, I have to believe must exacerbate this issue. And this
combination of software plus hardware issue is why we're all talking
about this for the first time.

But at the end of the day, all that matters is this: does the device
work? While that's a more complicated question for me to answer than it
should be because I happen to live in an area with notoriously bad AT&T
reception, the answer is yes. In regular use (so, not holding the
device a certain way to try and get it to fail) the iPhone 4 seems to
perform the same with regard to data usage as the iPhone 3GS did.
Without all the hubbub over the signal issue, I don't think I would
have noticed a problem (aside from day one when AT&T's network was
clearly getting slammed harder than usual).

As for call quality, I think the iPhone 4 is actually a bit better,
believe it or not. I've been to at least three spots where I couldn't
make a call before, and now I can. This lends some credence to the idea
that the iPhone 4 actually has a better antenna than the previous
iPhones, despite the fact that it's now exposed and seemingly more
susceptible to signal degradation.

I have also tried using the iPhone 4 with the new bumpers Apple sells
for the device, and it definitely seems to help the lower left corner
issue. It's too bad these things coast $29.99 a pop. I know Apple's
current stance is not to give these things away, but I wouldn't be
surprised if they don't start doing it if the software update isn't as
effective as they hope.

The Design

All this antenna talk is the direct result of something else: design
decisions Apple made for the iPhone 4. Ultimately, they may regret the
exterior antenna choice, but it's hard to argue with the overall
package. The iPhone 4 is easily the best piece of mobile hardware I've
ever laid my hands on.

In my initial thoughts (again, after playing with the device for about
20 minutes), I noted that the iPhone 4 made the iPhone 3GS feel a bit
like a toy in comparison. Well, if the iPhone 3GS feels like a toy,
most other smartphones out there feel like toys from the 99 Cent Store
compared to iPhone 4. It's just at a whole different level.

I happen to have 10 other recently popular cell phones laying around my
apartment (dating back to the Motorola RAZR — the phone I used right
before the original iPhone). I decided to pick each up just to see how
they feel compared to the iPhone 4. It's kind of a joke. Some feel okay
(the EVO and Nexus One), but nowhere close to the iPhone 4. Some feel
pure amateur by comparison (the Palm Pre and the myTouch 3G). And some
feel like I'm holding a Zack Morris or Gordon Gekko-style brick (the
G1). In fact, the best of the bunch was the original iPhone with its
aluminum back, in my opinion.



There has never been an iPhone that feels more solid, looks so
symmetrical, and has buttons that feel so right. I'm sure someone will
tell me there's a phone out there that's crafted at least as well
(perhaps in one of the European countries). But I have no doubt that if
such a device exists, it's one that 99.99% of us will never see or use
because it probably costs thousands of dollars. That may be the most
impressive thing about the iPhone 4 — it's priced to move at just $199
(or $299 — both after AT&T subsidy, obviously).

No other phone in that price range can touch the iPhone 4 in terms of
design and build quality. Not by a long shot.

That's actually the other thing that saddens me about the bumper — it
just makes the device feel (and look) cheaper. That said, the bumper is
very useful when setting your device down flat because it provides some
room between the all glass back and whatever surface it's on. This
glass is supposedly extremely strong, but that doesn't mean sticky
substances can't muck up say, the back camera.

The Camera

Speaking of the camera, it's a thing of beauty. Maybe you've heard
Apple's marketing talk that "it's about more than megapixels" — coined
because the iPhone 4 has a 5 megapixel camera while rivals like the EVO
have an 8 megapixel one. Well, it's not actually just marketing talk,
it's absolutely true.

I have both devices and the iPhone 4′s camera is definitely better the
EVO's. And that's just in quality — as previously mentioned, the camera
software on the EVO seems to be buggy and often has issues saving
pictures. I haven't had an issue once on the iPhone. The EVO also makes
it hard to switch between the back and front camera on the device. On
the iPhone 4, it's a one-click process right there on the screen.

What most impresses me about the iPhone 4′s camera though is its
ability to shoot in low light. In that regard, it reminds me much more
of my Canon S90, than any other camera phone I've ever used. The iPhone
4 includes an LED flash, and it works fine, but I'm tempted never to
use it because this thing is so good in low light. (See: the picturea
below taken with the iPhone 4.)





Just as impressive as the still camera is the iPhone 4′s ability to
shoot HD video (720p). This matches the EVO and other Android phones in
terms of quality and it also brings it up to par with the stand-alone
Flip HD cams. The quality of HD videos taken with the iPhone 4 is
excellent. There are some stability issues if your taking the video
while walking, but standing still, things look amazing (see: below).



FaceTime

The other big element of the iPhone 4 Apple is playing up (and, in
fact, the only element they're playing up in commercials right now) is
FaceTime. Yes, I know, other phones have done video chat for some time
now. But the fact that seemingly everyone is talking about mobile video
chatting for the first time with this release says just about all you
need to say.

As a technological demo, FaceTime is impressive. It really is
one-click-and-it-works provided both parties have iPhone 4s are are
connected to WiFi. There's nothing to set up, nothing to configure. You
hit the button and it works.

As a real world usable technology, FaceTime is profound. It's one thing
to do demos for your friends. It's another when you make your first
real FaceTime call. There you are, somewhere in the world, face-to-face
with someone else, someplace else in the world. Once the initial cool
factor wears off, it's like your in the room with them. And Apple is
ingenious to play this up in their commercial (below).



But what's even crazier about FaceTime is that Apple says they will
open source the technology — something which Apple doesn't often do. If
third-party developers choose to utilize it, it could be really
interesting.

Android

During Google I/O this past year, Google didn't beat around the bush:
the updates they were making with Android 2.2 were aimed squarely at
the iPhone. The problem that Android as a platform faces (with regard
to challenging Apple) is that they don't have the control over the
software + hardware mix in the same way that Apple does with the
iPhone. Yes, they may have took charge of the design the Nexus One —
and that is still, in my mind, their best phone to date — but they
don't have the type of industrial design expertise that Apple does
in-house. And it seems unlikely that they ever will unless they change
strategy.

Android now brings a lot to the table — plenty of things that the
iPhone doesn't offer such as WiFi hotspot creation, true voice search,
and tight Google Voice integration. From a technological and spec sheet
perspective, Android is impressive — and it continues to get more so.
But from a regular consumer and practical perspective, iPhone remains
the device to beat. There are just so many things you can do on the
device with such ease that are kind of a pain in the ass on Android. It
doesn't appear that Apple is letting Android phase them — they still
focus on quality over quantity.

But that doesn't mean the moves Google is making with Android don't
alter Apple's selective areas of focus for the iPhone. And I think it's
great that there are two companies playing off each other in that
regard. They're pushing one another to continue to innovate. And that
means all of us, as consumers, win.

From a hardware perspective, iPhone 4 rises to the challenge brought by
many Android devices in the year since the iPhone 3GS launched. And it
surpasses those devices. It offers a better screen, better camera,
better speed, and better battery life than any Android device. But I
have no doubt that much of that will again change in the next year, as
Android continues to rapidly iterate.

And then iPhone 5 will come out, and we'll be having this discussion
all over again.



Conclusion + One More Thing

In conclusion, if you said you were buying a phone today, I would
absolutely tell you to get the iPhone 4. Are there antenna issues? Yes,
but they don't adversely affect the overall experience to the point
where I wouldn't buy this phone over all others. And in fact, in normal
day-to-day usage they don't seem to adversely affect the iPhone usage
that I'm used to at all (and that's not so much a statement in favor of
Apple as it is a statement against AT&T).

That brings me to the caveat. And it's a big one. Since the initial
launch of the iPhone there have been rumors about the device coming to
Verizon — but those rumors are now louder than ever. The current ones
suggest a January 2011 launch date for such a pairing.

If I 100% knew that was the case, there is no way I would recommend
anyone to buy the iPhone 4 right now. But, just as was the case last
year, I simply don't know that right now — and I'm not sure anyone
besides Apple really does (including both AT&T and Verizon). Basically,
buying the iPhone 4 right now is a several hundred dollar bet that it
won't launch on Verizon in 6 months. It's a gamble.

But there is a silver lining if you choose to make the bet. Even if the
Verizon iPhone does launch, it should help the iPhone on AT&T, because
there will undoubtedly be defectors by the thousands (if not more).
Those users switching will ease the strain on AT&T's network and could
actually render it usable at all times again. It really could be a
win-win.

Speculation aside, the iPhone 4 is the smartphone to beat from this
point going forward. It will be fun to watch Android try to answer and
see if they can dethrone the king before iPhone 5. Leading up to iPhone
4, Android has kept inching closer, but this latest device from Apple
is the biggest leap forward the product line has taken yet. It's going
to be hard to beat.


CrunchBase InformationiPhone 4Information provided by CrunchBase





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