First Impressions on my iPhone4
So I was one of those lucky souls that got their iPhone4 a day early. FedEx’s tracking system was being bombarded with requests and was no longer providing updated tracking information the morning of the 23rd.
At about 10:23am, FedEx was knocking at my door so I rushed to the door (I was on the phone with BofA) and opened the door to find the FedEx guy wiht a small box, he asked if I was Scott Mindeaux, I said yes and he handed me the box after a scribble on his pad.
I opened the box and was trembling with joy. Could this be real?? Yes it was and once cupped in my hand I knew it was real. This is one nice piece of hardware. Solid, feels good in the hand. I really wanted a White iPhone, but those were no where to be found – and according to reports on MacRumors and MacNN, they won’t be available to the public until mid-July. The phone is enclosed in glass and a band of stainless steel wraps around the unit. It’s very contemporary and despite having hard edges, it’s an elegant design.
I powered up the unit and the icon asking for a connection cable was on the screen. They unit launched iTunes and asked me for my number and other pieces of identification to verify that I was an existing AT&T customer. After about 3 minutes, my system started to come to life. My apps were being installed and then a previous backup files were also being uploaded. Within about 12 minutes, it was done.
I unplugged and the first thing I did? A FaceTime call with my friend in DC, Scott Shumaker. This was magical indeed. His face appeared and mine did too in the corner and was started talking and throwing back “no way’s” to each other. We flipped our cameras to the back side camera to show the other view. THis image was crisp and there was no apparent lag. It will be interesting to see after the other 600,000 or so users get their phones activated how well FaceTime works. Seeing Scott on the screen was very kewl. THIS was Star Trek!
Some some things to note so far:
Call reception and quality was about the same as my 3G
Speakers “seem” like they are a bit louder
There were/are reports of signal loss when being held – I personally experienced this yesterday and there is a drop in bars when held by the stainless steel. However, when I release the signal bars come back.
Thankfully, I don’t have any of the yellow blotches in the lower righthand corner
This display is SICK! I struggled looking to see if I could see pixels with the naked eye. I played a few videos on it and it is brilliant!
I already fallen in love with the folder system – this makes like easier for sure!
I have taken a few photos, but the real test will be when I do a restaurant review. I’m looking forward to touch focus and if it can handle low light environments. On my 3G I bought a case that had a sliding macro lens for close up photos. I was told I won’t be needing it with this phone. I’ll let you know how it goes. As far as regular photos, they are crisp and look great!
I have taken a few movies with the phone but have yet to export and view them on an HD monitor – more on this later…
Did I tell you this unit is fast??? It is very responsive and the most notable of this speed is the ability to take successive photos in a row with the iPhone4.
I didn’t think I would actually “read” books on here, but I downloaded iBooks and can I say it looks great? I found myself reading a book when going to bed last night.
The only “multi-tasking app” I have loaded right now is Pandora. As more apps become iOS4 compliant there will be more apps that take advantage of multi-tasking
On a side note, my NetShare app (which was banned from the iPhone 2 years ago) still works…kinda. It works for a minute then the app quits. If I relaunch it, it works for another minute then craps out again. Oh well, if I “really” need tethering, I’ll have to use AT&T’s option for tethering at $10 a month with bluetooth or usb connection.
Having a unified email box is nice too.
More to come later….
Filed under: iPhone, Rave
