iPhone 4

Mixed reactions to today’s iPhone announcement.

The Good:

• The design. This is, by far and away, one of the best looking phones on the market, and possibly the best looking phone, period. It’s far more beautiful than any previous iPhone, especially the plasticky-unbalanced 3G/S. Beautiful industrial look with more than a hint of Braun influence. Steel & Glass & Bauhaus in one. I adore it.
• The screen. Great resolution and I’m sure this will look outstanding and be very easy on the eyes. A nice jump from the existing iPhone.
• The gyroscope. A very cool addition to the phone, though I suspect this will mostly be for games/flight sims, which is an area I don’t get into on mobile devices, if I’m honest. Neat that you can capture yaw on the iPhone, I’m just not sure how it will be used outside of the entertainment realm.

The Bad:

• Facetime. Apple’s supposed revolution in video conferencing involved putting a front-facing camera on the iPhone (this has been around for years in the European & Japanese markets, even my WinMo Omnia had the capability), then they limited it to only other iPhone 4 devices, and only over WiFi. If you have to be connected to a WiFi network, then what’s the point?! This is a total flop. I realize Apple is limited here by the carriers to some point, but the places I’d want to use this aren’t in WiFi areas, not to mention people like my mom will never be using a phone like this.
• Multitasking. No significant improvement here over similar implementations in Android. In fact, I think the HTC Sense version is more elegant.
• The screen’s name. They’re calling it a Retina Display. See also Weasal Words. Sometimes Apple’s marketing is brilliant, and other times, they pull crap like this. Not to mention, it’s slightly disingenuous to say that.
• The new OS name. I might be nitpicking here (wouldn’t be the first time), but iOS? Really? I understand that you’re trying to remove “phone” from the name, as this is now applicable to the iPad, etc., but iOS is harder to pronounce, and just looks like a mashed together collection of letters. Poor choice, in my opinion. But the worst part, by far…
• Still tied to AT&T in the US. Sorry Apple, but this isn’t flying with me. You keep making your phone better, and putting it on the shittiest network in the US.

So there you have it. A couple of very cool new features, a couple of duds, and a crappy carrier with calls that drop constantly (insert bad joke about a hooker’s undergarments here). It’s not so much a revolution as it is an evolution. And frankly…that’s not good enough.