iPhone 4 review – A few months on

It is probably nice to get a quick take on a new handset when it initially appears, but perhaps more store can be set by a look back, using all the knowledge gained, at a few months of constant usage.

My iPhone 4 appeared in early July. At that time, I wrote a column with my immediate impressions and initial feelings about the phone. During that period, the Antenna-gate issue was well under way, as was the proximity-sensor problem. When my iPhone arrived, I tried very hard to get it to malfunction in terms of signal strength by bridging the infamous gap between sections of the phone-edge external antenna. I was never able to get the handset to suffer the symptoms described by the popular press. I do feel badly for those that had problems that for some reason refused to effect me. It must have been maddening for those experiencing the problems.

I did have a run-in with the proximity sensor, a single call during which my beard caused me to “tap” unintentionally on the numeric keypad that was then displayed on the phone, causing a series of beeps that threatened to interrupt the conversation. Luckily, I had heard of the problem and just kept my face away from the phone for the duration of the conversation. It must have been something transient, as it never happened to me again.

Therefore, I never suffered any of the ills that some people reported with the new iPhone 4. When I received my free bumper, I installed it. When updates came out, I installed them. From my first day of use, to my writing of this review, I have not had another negative experience with the hardware and have had very few problems with firmware of software.

There are, however, a lot of positive experiences to point out. The main camera of the iPhone 4 is quite good, given the tiny bit of hardware space that it has been allowed. Even with my iPhone 3G, I often uttered the maxim that the best camera was the one that you had with you. With the iPhone 4, that is true in spades. At five megapixels, it creates a decent JPEG, making every use it can of every ounce of light and color. If I have a complaint, it is that the photos often look better than the scene you shot. The new HDR feature that came with iOS4.1 makes good photos out of many bad situations, and was a welcome photographic addition.

The display is so much better than previous models that you have to see the difference to believe it. I am an admitted Netflix junkie and it really comes into its own on the iPhone 4. It has the speed to stream without delays the vast majority of the time, and having the iPhone 4 a foot from your face is just as good as watching an excellent HDTV six feet away. The sound from the external speakers is less than awesome, but that is easily remedied with earphones.

Having leapt directly from the 3G to the 4 (that two-year contract with AT&T thing) probably the biggest subjective improvement was speed. I am glad to say that feeling has not subsided. The phone still seems as fast as it did the day I got it; an iPhone 4 user never needs to wait for anything except AT&T. The functions of my GPS programs (I’m an inveterate road tripper) are lightning fast, rather than balky as they were with the much lesser power of the 3G. In addition, the actual GPS hardware is much better as well, allowing me to do away with my TomTom car kit, as well as (thankfully) with TomTom, altogether.

Nor can one ignore the beauty of multitasking. Now I can answer the phone while playing music on my phone and watching the GPS map and never miss a beat. I have taken to using the Motorola T505 speaker phone (and FM transmitter) on the road, so now the music gets automatically paused to announce GPS instructions on the car stereo, and phone calls are hands free to the visor mounted unit. It is equally nice to be able to watch my Web stats and keep up with Plurk while scan the tech scene in the blogosphere without missing a beat (although not while driving). Multi-tasking was a long time coming, but well worth the wait.

I should also say that I nearly abandoned my iPhone due to problems with updates on the 3G. Just trying to update the firmware, I lost every thing several times and had to reset to base and restore from backup a number of times. There were even problems with individual apps, especially TomTom, taking forever and then finally completing but losing all your data, such as the locations of favorites. The iPhone 4 has so far been perfect. Updates happen quickly and without drama, both firmware and apps, making me glad that I decided to wait out the 3G and get to the iPhone 4.

Is the iPhone 4 perfect? Nope. There are still things that Apple could have done better, or still needs to do, period. Here’s a few things that Apple could do to improve the lives of iPhone users:

Get rid of AT&T, in favor of a wireless provider that can actually give us high speeds and call quality without dropping calls. Right now, that would mean an iPhone for Verizon. I might pony up a big early termination fee just to get to Verizon.
Users would like even better battery life, even though the life of the iPhone 4 battery is much better than earlier models. I would like to get all the way through a 12-hour day without worrying about it.
I have heard a lot of gamers say that they wanted better 3D graphics. Not being much of a game player, this does not affect me, but I’ll take their word for it.
Even more processor and RAM. No computer, and make no mistake that the iPhone 4 is more computer than phone, can ever have too much of either.
Carriers are scrambling to put together their 4G networks. It would have been nice to see 4G abilities built into the iPhone 4, since most of us are stuck with the 4 for two generations due to contracts, and 4G should be operational in just one generation. We’re going to have to wait for it too long.

But these things are just picking nits. The iPhone 5 may have all of them, and I will still probably have my iPhone 4 through one generation after the 5. For my money, the iPhone 4 is still hands-down the best phone on the market. I have looked hard at the Android phones, and while they may be nice, they are not iPhones. The same can most certainly said about Blackberries. I am as happy right now as I have ever been with a phone, and until someone gives me a reason to change my mind, in the form of a better smartphone, I am sticking with the iPhone.

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Related posts:

1. TomTom and their problematic iOS4 update
2. TomTom GPS app is ready for the iPhone
3. iPhone users eagerly await turn-by-turn GPS
4. How to jailbreak your iPhone or iPod Touch
5. No iPhone TomTom car kit until October