iPhone 4: Pffft.
To say that I ‘caved’ would be to presume that I was holding out against the mighty onslaught of iPhone 4 propaganda, information, misinformation, excitement and mighty tech goodness. Unfortunately, the outcome was inevitable.
Matters were made worse by the fact that I had just registered a shiny new credit card, supposedly destined to help with the fact I’m lacking a kitchen, when the email exclaiming “pre-order!” hit my inbox. Higher cashback in the first 3 months. Access around the traffic jam through the Apple Store for Education. The excuse that “I’ve never had a new iPhone before”. Oh, hell.
So nine days later I was taking a couple of snaps of the box, holding the latest piece of Apple tech in my hand, and generally being bowled over by the whole thing. This was punctuated by the hacking of my 17-year-old SIM card into a new, svelte shape using a Stanley knife and a small fight with iTunes and some distant, tired servers. Voilá˝°! Factory unlocked goodness.
Rubbish
Here’s the tricky bit. What to say about it? After a couple of weeks surely everyone has had their say already? Camera? Check. It’s great, and there’s a flash. And there are two of them. And they both do video. Sleek new look? Check. It’s built like the proverbial outhouse, looks great, weighs a bit more. Awesome screen? Check. It’s awesome.
In fact, I’d written most of what I was going to post here when I realised that it was all positive drivel about how good the damn thing is. And it is. But let’s get British about this. Where are the things that make us go “meh”?
Transistors
Let’s start with Apple’s lovely new A4 processor. Yeah, okay, it’s not new. They reused British ARM-troleum’s Cortex A8 design, threw away a whole bunch of stuff (sounds very Apple so far), shoved some graphics on the side and called it a miracle. Let’s get this straight.
- It’s a bit faster. Not a lot faster. A bit faster.
- Your first processor. Surely you should call it the A1?
I’m not going to mention the fact that battery life has improved no end. Not going to mention that at all. I’m just going to focus on the fact that in use, it’s a bit smoother. A bit faster. A bit more able to do 720p video editing. A bit less likely to get quite so warm as the 3GS. I do hope that didn’t sound too positive.
Multitasking
Click-click. Taaap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Click.
This is the routine you must adopt to quit things you are no longer using. Maybe things you didn’t even use, but you just loaded by mistake. Because everything ends up in that multitasking bar. Every app you load – bing! It’s multitasking. You end up with a list of all of your apps not only in lovely, neat little folders, but also in one cumbersome great ticker across the bottom of the screen.
The worst of it is that it doesn’t seem to make any bloody difference! Leave the apps open? Close them all up? Who cares? Well, I do. I can be pedantic and obsessive, when I can be bothered, and when something’s a bit of a mess I’d prefer it tidied up; but I’d like to know if it’s worthwhile. Some might say this is a backhanded compliment, but people say a lot of things.
Retina Display
It makes Angry Birds look rubbish. It makes low-res icons look rubbish. You have to redo your custom background image because importing it from your 2G / 3G / 3GS backup means it’ll look… naff.
Also, there’s a tiny, tiny bezel around the outside of the glass that was specifically designed to collect tiny, tiny pieces of dust. This is a feature I frankly could have done without, particularly when the phone is black and the prevailing dust is white. When they finally calm down on the black ones and make a couple of white ones, you just know the prevailing dust will be black. The lack of a dust-coloured version is, bluntly, an oversight.
Industrial Design
It’s made of more luxurious materials, and though it only weighs a little more, it feels like it weighs more than a little more. Also, the super-smooth glass back means that when you’re sat on the sofa and put the phone to one side, it slides towards you interminably like the pint that clumsy guy knocked over in the pub. It’s also difficult to take a decent picture of for a waffly blog post because it’s really rather black; blacker and shinier than the previous versions somehow. I’ll allow one positive in here: fingerprints seem less keen to stick and easier to clean off.
I’ll temper that slightly with the oh-so-hyped grip of death, or ‘holding it’, as it’s otherwise known. Does reception get worse when you pick it up? In my experience, yes. Yes, it does. It can go from full signal to no service if you bridge the little gap in the lower left corner (which is exactly what my left hand does every day). And let’s face facts here; the iPhone has never been the best mobile telephone you can buy. My cheap work Nokia 2323 beats it hands-down for reception. But smartphone… I’ll stop short of another platitude.
So, can Apple fix this with a software update? The truth is, I’ve never been able to make a call from my office with an iPhone, except for with the iPhone 2G before iPhone OS 3 came out. Weird. Let’s wait and see.
All Your Dock Are Belong To Us
Remember you got a dock for free with the 2G? Remember you paid out cash for the dock for your 3G or 3GS? Buy no more! Gather them all together and marvel that the phone has finally got a little smaller. The best bit is that this is the first iPhone that works really well with the Apple Bluetooth Headset; at last, you can use it from more than a metre away!
Gouder
So, to finish up, except for the phone bit, the new iPhone is excellent. Just think of it as the new Apple i. I’m sure there is some serious head-scratching and bum-kicking going on at Apple HQ regarding these apparent antenna issues, but lets just see what the next point update to iOS brings us.
But more importantly, let’s wait for the update to Angry Birds. That’s the one we actually care about.
UPDATE: Angry Birds looks better now thanks to judicious use of anti-aliasing. Happy days!