Posts from — June 2010

I know. It has been a while since my last post. The schedule has been packed to the brim and now even more so with my recent move into a full-time gig at Nasuni. So what better a topic to get back into the swing of things than to talk about my last few days with the latest and greatest from my favorite fruit company, the iPhone 4.

Like many others, I failed at securing a phone for shipment, but was able to reserve one – and boy it is a good thing I did. When I arrived to the Apple store in Natick, MA last Thursday morning the line for ‘non-reserves,’ as they called them, was not a pretty sight. But, after two hours of waiting in the ‘fast moving’ line, I had Steve’s latest creation in-hand.

For me, the setup process went without a hitch. Many friends and colleagues had reported iTunes timing out, crashing, and other assorted goodies. I suppose I got lucky, but I have never run into any issues with restoring my iPhones from backup.

Feature highlights:

• The screen. Can’t get much better than this folks, ‘surreal’ comes to mind
• The camera. Best cell phone camera I have used to date, yes better than the 8MP DROID
• Pure beauty. The design is just incredible, more akin to the first phone than the plastic laden 3G(S). However, I am much more fearful of dropping it
• FaceTime. Awesome, though lack of 3G support is a reminder of the iPhone’s true Achilles heel
• Battery life. Excellent, easily lasts 1.5x longer than 3GS

Those are the highlights. It’s extremely fast, but I really didn’t feel as if the 3GS was lacking in speed. For those jumping from a 3G or 2G (gasp, yes @lyddiegal I am talking to you) be prepared to smile.

As far as the signal strength issues, I have noticed the signal indicator does some wacky stuff but I have seen no negative impact in call quality. No calls dropped and excellent voice quality for all the calls I have made and received – which leads me to believe this is a software bug. But, it is too early to jump to any conclusions. I will follow up in a week or two of use and report my experience.

Overall, the iPhone 4 lives up to the hype. I will say some of the updates are a bit long overdue. I was hoping for some of these features last year when the 3GS was announced, but better late (and done right) than never. Having tested many of the current heavy-hitters in the smartphone arena I can say with confidence that the iPhone 4 is without a doubt the best phone currently available in the U.S. market.

Head over to my flickr page to see some photos taken with it –