Note: I didn’t buy an iPhone 4, but I did get a chance to sit down and play with one for a few hours last night…
First off, I have to agree with everyone else out there and say that this screen is fantastic, that is unless you get one with a defective screen with that nice yellow discoloration in the lower lefthand corner. HD video is mind-blowingly awesome for such a small screen, colors are crazy vivid and photos look absolutely amazing because of this. Sadly though, screen smudging and fingerprints still run rampant and viewing in bright light is as glare filled as ever.
Similar to how the iPhone 3G made the original iPhone feel like a cheap toy; iPhone 4 makes the 3GS not only cry like a girl, but feel like outdated lump of plastic. A very outdated lump of plastic. In more technical terms, what I’m saying is the build quality is very impressive and it feels quite solid. Not to mention the hardware specs of the iPhone 4 outshine even the iPad (at least in the RAM department). And you notice those hardware differences, the A4 processor in conjunction with 512MB of RAM allows current applications to load insanely fast, which helps make users feel like they actually are multitasking, and as a developer I’m pretty excited to see what can be done with this extra power in future applications.
Video recording has also improved nicely since the 3GS, largely thanks to the bigger and better sensors. Image stabilization is quite handy and works surprisingly well, which makes using FaceTime quite a bit less nauseating than it might be otherwise. I only made a short 3 minute FactTime call, but I could see it catching on, albeit slowly as it seems slightly handicapped by the fact that FaceTime is WiFi only. Also, I have confirmed that FaceTime works over a MiFi connection without problem, so what the heck AT&T?!
As for iOS 4, my opinions haven’t changed much, the big ‘wow’ feature of multitasking isn’t really all it’s chalked up to be. Think of it more as fast application switching and while it’s a step in the right direction, you can’t really label it true multitasking when it requires developers to recode their applications to include support for background audio / local notification APIs. I still prefer the way Backgrounder (Jailbreak required) addresses the issue, though I have not had a chance to test Backgrounder with iOS 4 yet.
Even though I think it’s a great phone, I don’t think I’ll be upgrading from my current iPhone anytime soon, partially because I’m considering switching to the Android platform or at least adding one to my arsenal of phones. Now I didn’t get a chance to see if my iPad’s Micro SIM worked as a data only option in the iPhone 4, but I will try and arrange an opportunity to do so in the near future. And of course, I’ll keep you guys updated when I do
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