Introduction
June 2010 has brought us Apple’s fourth iPhone. No longer a revolutionary device, but still a pace setter, iPhone 4 features an elegant new industrial design, a stunning new display, and even more speed than last year’s “twice as fast” iPhone 3GS.
iphone 4
Pricing is the same as before: $199 for one with 16 GB of storage or $299 for 32 GB. As before, these prices are subsidized in the US by AT&T; current AT&T subscribers who aren’t yet eligible for discounted upgrades will pay a whopping $599 or $699 — more than the original, unsubsidized iPhone in 2007, which was $499 for the base model or $599 with extra storage. At these prices you will do well to look at iphone 4 insurance.
Apple has evolved its industrial design again, pushing the limits of both design and manufacturing. The original iPhone was made of round-edged aluminum — stylish, but paying a steep price in poor reception. The next iPhone replaced metal with plastic, dramatically improving reception, while the gently curved back nestled nicely in the human palm. The 3GS didn’t change this design a bit, but iPhone 4 breaks the design mold, for better and for worse.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs likened the iPhone 4 to a Leica camera, but we think first of Dieter Rams’ iconic Braun product designs, and of the German Bauhaus design movement. Perfectly flat, thinner than ever, with precisely radiused corners, sleek black glass front, and black, steel buttons and mute toggle… it’s a beautiful and pure, yet severe, design. It weighs the same as its predecessor, but it’s smaller, more rigid, denser. It feels right.
iPhone’s defining glass front is now complemented by a matching glass back, adding another dimension of symmetry to the design. Earlier models’ decorative plastic chrome has been discarded for a steel band circling the unit. That steel band, notched into 3 sections, is not just for style: it pulls double duty as both structural support and antennas for cellular data, wifi and Bluetooth. The combination of black glass and satin finished steel is striking.
Still, the new design is less approachable than the warm, welcoming curves of iPhone 3G/3GS, and that clever antenna turns out to be prone to losing cell network reception if you touch the bottom and left sides simultaneously. All cell phones are prone to losing some reception, but iPhone 4 is far more vulnerable to this than others. It seems like a triumph of style over function — something neither Rams nor the Bauhaus movement ever advocated — but on the other hand, iPhone 4 can pull in weaker signals than the 3GS, which can mean fewer dropped calls.
Beneath the skin, iPhone 4 has some huge changes, all for the better. Most obvious (and most hyped) is the “Retina Display” — with four times as many pixels as previous iPhones, it surpasses the resolution of the human eye. A front-facing camera enables Apple’s new “FaceTime” video chat system, while the rear camera gets a flash, HD video recording, and a “backside illuminated” sensor that can resolve finer details. A tiny microelectromechanical gyroscope inside complements iPhone’s accelerometers, giving the new iPhone high-precision, six-axis motion detection.
In the box (which is completely recyclable) are much the same contents as last year: a wall charger and USB/charging cable, earphones with mic and remote, a “Finger Tips” booklet for getting started, and two white Apple stickers. Apple’s custom “SIM removal tool” is no longer included; a paper clip will do the job if needed.
iPhone 4 has Apple’s latest iPhone software; it’s now called iOS, to reflect its use on iPods and iPads, as well. iOS 4 brings many new features to most recent iPhones and iPod Touches (but won’t work with the original 2007 iPhone and first generation iPod Touch). Notable features include fast task switching and multitasking, home screen folders and wallpaper, spell checking, and support for Bluetooth keyboards, unified email inbox and message threading, 5x digital camera zoom and tap-to-focus while recording video. iOS 4 also brings Internet tethering to the US from AT&T. (The rest of the world got it last year.)
Along with the iPhone 4 come two new data plans from AT&T. For light data users, AT&T offers a $15/month option with a 200MB data quota; heavy users can opt for a $25/month quota of 2 GB (2000 MB). We estimate about 45% of iPhone owners use less than 200 MB of cellular data a month; 2 GB will keep most of the rest happy. AT&T says only 2% of users exceed this regularly, and our own use bears this out. For that 2%, existing customers can keep their $30/month “unlimited” data plan — but new customers don’t get this option.
Internet tethering, which lets your iPhone provide Internet access to your laptop via USB or Bluetooth, is not available with the cheaper plan or the old unlimited plan — you must switch to the $25 2GB quota plan and pay another $20/month to turn on tethering. This would be okay, but that money doesn’t get you any more data, despite the higher data use that laptops tend to incur. At least, overage charges are reasonable, at $10 per 1GB.
As usual, Apple touts their latest product as the best thing ever; Apple’s store banners proclaim “This changes everything. Again.” But does it really? After the Steve Jobs “Reality Distortion Field” effect and the launch-day excitement and press coverage wears off, how does it stand up? And if you have an earlier iPhone with the iOS 4 upgrade, is the new iPhone 4 really all that?
What’s New
Just like last year, Apple has made sure the new hardware has some features the earlier models can’t match, even after the latest software update. Apple applied its knack for turning techno-babble into understandable terms in naming two flagship features: Retina Display and FaceTime.
Retina Display
iPhone 4′s new display is twice the resolution of previous models: 960×640. Aside from being most of the way to HD resolution, the pixels are packed so densely — 326 per inch — that they exceed the resolution of the human eye, according to Apple.
That’s quite a strong claim. Retinal neuroscientist Bryan Jones, of the University of Utah’s Moran Eye Center, put the iPhone 4 display under his lab microscope, as well as previous models and the iPad, and published his observations.
The original iPhone and 3G models have pixels measuring 176 microns by 223 microns (one micron = 1/1,000,000th meter). The iPhone 4′s pixels are 78 by 102 microns. For comparison, a human hair is about 100 microns wide, and a droplet of water in fog is 10 microns in diameter.
Dr. Jones notes that standard visual acuity (“20/20 vision”) can discern black/white transitions at a fineness of one arc-minute (1/60th of a degree). At 12″ away from the eye, this works out to a resolution of 287 pixels per inch. The iPhone 4′s 326 ppi is, as Apple claims, “comfortably higher” than that limit.
The other feature of the Retina Display is its construction. Rather than a sheet of glass laid against a touch-sensor and LCD panel, with an air gap that introduces distortion (and eventually, dust), Retina Display’s components are glued together with an optical-grade adhesive. Microscope photographs show that iPhone 4′s pixels are far sharper and better defined than the iPhone 3G’s or the original iPhone’s. (In fact, they are so clearly visible that we can see several sub-pixel elements, with the microscope, in each color bar within each pixel.)
The overall effect is that the iPhone 4′s display looks amazing. It looks like a glossy photographic print, and with iOS’s built-in text antialiasing, text sharpness on the iPhone compares well with a 1200dpi laser printer.
The iPhone has always used Helvetica as its default font — a beautiful typeface for print — but its subtle details are lost on computer screens, so it was an odd choice previously, when Apple already had the screen-optimized Lucida font family on tap. Retina Display shows all of Helvetica’s beauty and precision, and the thinner, lighter strokes possible at these resolutions make for wonderful readability. We can’t help but wonder if Apple’s iPhone interface designers were betting on ultra-high-resolution screens from the outset.
FaceTime
The iPhone 4 adds a second camera on its face (just to the left of the speaker slot), and a companion app called FaceTime. While you’re on a phone call, you can start a video call by tapping the new FaceTime on-screen button (replacing the little-used Hold button — you can mute your call instead, or press-and-hold for a second to switch to true Hold mode). Tap it on a call with another iPhone 4, and the phones set up WiFi-based video chat. The phone call is dropped (so you stop using your AT&T minutes) in favor of the video chat. Within seconds, each caller sees the other on-screen; you can tap a translucent button to flip to the backside camera and share what you are looking at; tap again to flip back to your face.
It sounds simple, but no handset maker has ever really done it right before. Some Android phones have the requisite extra camera, and software, but it’s been finicky at the best of times; even prominent tech journalists supported by the Android handset vendors have been foiled recently. Apple’s special “it just works” sauce here uses the telephone call itself to identify each user and set up the session — no extra accounts to log into, no extra software to download. It’s simply present and ready to go in every iPhone 4.
Although Apple demonstrated FaceTime with phone calls, you can go straight to FaceTime from your Contacts list. (The implication is clear: FaceTime may be coming to iPod Touch, sooner or later.)
Apple also has proposed FaceTime as a free and open industry specification, in hopes that other handset vendors will hop on the bandwagon and bring video calling to everyone, whether they are an iPhone user or not.
Today, Wifi is required for FaceTime; perhaps AT&T doesn’t want Apple’s millions of customers flooding their network with bandwidth-chugging video? At least wireless access points are easy enough to find while traveling. If you can’t find a trendy Internet cafe, almost every Starbucks and McDonalds have free wifi too. But FaceTime on a street corner or in a shopping mall will have to wait for AT&T to loosen up (or improve its network).
If there is a drawback to FaceTime, it’s one of self-confidence. The camera shows you just as you are; if you have a hard time with mirrors, you’ll have an even harder time with FaceTime. Jason Kottke recently noted that author David Foster Wallace predicted this in his 1996 novel Infinite Jest. We think Wallace’s irony-laced predictions are a bit exaggerated; FaceTime may not be for every phone call, but there is nothing quite like it. It feels deeply personal and a bit magical, and for frequent travelers away from family, it will be a godsend.
Improved Camera
Last year, Apple upgraded the iPhone’s camera from mediocre to almost-acceptable; it was good only compared to how bad it was before. But this year, Apple’s done much better; we’re pleasantly surprised.
iphone 4 camera photo sample 1
The new iPhone 4 camera sensor goes from 3 megapixels to 5 megapixels — 2592 by 1936 pixels. But, instead of packing more pixels into the same size sensor, which reduces sensitivity and increases noise in the image, the new sensor is physically larger for higher quality.
The 3GS’s sensor improved on its predecessor in dynamic range and color saturation, but the iPhone 4 has made a huge jump. It can handle much wider ranges of light and dark in an image (although sunlight can still wash out the sky), and color is boosted. The iPhone 4′s color is almost too vibrant — not cartoonish but a little exaggerated. Most people will like this effect, but purists will not. Noise is definitely lower, which improves both well-lit scenes and night time images. The new sensor is able to capture much more detail than before, with finer gradations of light and color. It’s not perfect — blues and purples are prone to washing out — but it’s quite good for this class of device.
Like the 3GS, the iPhone 4 camera has both auto-focus and tap-to-focus. The lens has the same fixed F/2.8 aperture as the iPhone 3GS, but with blurring (“bokeh”) outside its depth of focus that is far more pleasing.
iphone 4 camera photo sample 2
We noticed that when taking “macro” photos (super-close ups), or when the subject has indistinct edges, the camera tends to focus on objects behind what we tapped on, so such photos may require a second try at focussing correctly.
The iPhone 4 also adds an LED flash, which works surprisingly well; it’s useful out to nearly eight feet, enough for photos of people at night. It fires automatically as light requires (or you can disable it or force it on). Before firing, it turns on for a second to illuminate the scene, then flashes brighter for a moment. It definitely beats the blurry, grainy, out of focus nighttime photos the iPhone 3GS took! (Last year in our annual iPhone review, we asked why this was missing; we’re glad it showed up at last.)
iphone 4 camera with flash
without flash
HD Video
Next on the upgrade list: 720p HD video recording, replacing the 3GS’s 640×480 video. Image quality is pretty good, with few compression artifacts, but it has a much smaller angle of view than its predecessor. This isn’t the lens, which has an angle similar to the 3GS’s; rather, the edges of the image are cropped away. This forces you to back up from your subjects, compared to the iPhone 3GS. The microphone is still pointed 90 degrees away from the subject, so you lose audio volume, and it’s prone to wind noise.
The Flip MinoHD, which we reviewed in December 2008, also suffers from the tight field of view, but its microphone is pointed in the correct direction, and that alone makes it a superior camcorder. A correctly-oriented microphone would make a huge difference to iPhone 4′s video recordings.
iMovie
Sold for $4.99 in the App Store — only for the iPhone 4 — iMovie for iPhone is a basic video editor. You can join together multiple clips with Apple-designed transitions and titles, trim at the beginning or end, insert pictures from your Camera Roll or photos synced from your computer, and lay in a music track. Five basic themes are included, each with a custom transition effect, plus beginning, middle and end title styles. The basic cross-fade is also available. Transitions are applied in real time, no waiting required.
While it can’t hold a candle to iMovie’s range of effects and transitions on the Mac, the iMovie app is quick, easy, and fun.
Unfortunately, the iMovie app has some very poor interface choices. It took us two days to discover titles — the option doesn’t appear until you double-tap on a clip. This is the first significant use of double-tap we’ve seen in Apple’s iPhone apps. Formal research studies and anecdotal experience both tell us that the vast majority of people don’t distinguish between a single and double click with a mouse; this does not bode well for discoverability in iMovie. Core functionality should not be hidden.
We eventually found an iMovie FAQ on Apple’s support site which documents some of the interface. Among other things, it told us that you can stretch or pinch the timeline — which we had tried and thought didn’t do anything. There isn’t much visual feedback that the timeline is scaling, and if you’re at the maximum or minimum end, the timeline “shudders”… so we thought that pinching just didn’t do anything.
Adding pictures from your photo albums is easy, but not painless. Instead of the standard iPhone photo picker, iMovie uses a custom picker that lags badly when you flick it up and down quickly. And instead of starting at the bottom of the list, with your most recent photos, it starts at the top, with the oldest. If you have a lot of photos in your Camera Roll (we usually have several hundred waiting to be downloaded to our Mac), this makes adding more than one photo a painfully slow and frustrating process. Adding confusion, both Albums and Faces from the Photos app are in the list, but not Places.
The iMovie app designers re-invented the wheel just to match its nearly-black interface color palette. As a consequence, we have lost the benefit of four years of performance tuning of the standard photo picker. No other app on our iPhone makes it so hard to add photos.
Getting your project out of iMovie is a multi-step process. First you exit your project to iMovie’s main screen. Then you export the project to the Camera Roll. Then you return to the home screen, and launch the Photos app. (Yes, “Photos.” For video.) With us so far? Tap into the Camera Roll, tap your video. And at last, you can email it, send it in an MMS phone message or publish it to YouTube or MobileMe.
But… your HD-quality video is compressed to less than a quarter size before sending; if you want to share the real HD movie, you have to connect your iPhone 4 to a Mac or PC, get the HD movie out using iPhoto, Image Capture or Aperture, and then publish it yourself. Who thought up this mess?
Finally, you can only add one song to the timeline. You can’t start with one, then transition to another, nor can you adjust when the song starts. Your one song had better be perfect for the whole video. Frustrating. Audio cross-fade is not computationally expensive, and with the iPhone 4′s 512 MB of RAM under the hood, this should not be a problem.
For $5, maybe we ought not expect much, but this is from Apple. Gestural interfaces already suffer from low discoverability, as eloquently illustrated by Lukas Matias last month in his blog Gestures, and more formally this month by Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman in Gestural Interfaces: A Step Backwards in Usability. Apple, as the leader in touch technology, has a responsibility to lead not only through innovation, but through consistently providing the best examples. Independent App Store developers follow Apple’s lead. We hope they don’t follow many of iMovie’s missteps.
Issues & Compatibility
Reception
We can reproduce the widely reported “Death Grip” easily enough, and that’s certainly not a good sign. But don’t all cell phones get worse reception when you cover their antenna? We took an iPhone 3GS and an iPhone 4 for a walk outside, with a full five bars showing, and fired up the free SpeedTest.net app to see how they fared when held at the bottom, covering the antenna, and at the top, farthest from the antenna. We ran each test five times, alternating phones (so they would not compete for bandwidth), and averaged the runs.
When held in the “Death Grip”, iPhone 4′s download speed plummets. Yet the iPhone 3GS plummets very nearly as much (proportionately). Perhaps this is not an entirely new problem, but still, the iPhone 3GS never loses service entirely, as the iPhone 4 can.
AnandTech has published detailed antenna testing results, using a clever hack to get iPhone 4 to show raw signal strength data instead of the signal bars we usually see. Two things stand out from their testing: First, the antenna loses 24dBm of signal when held in the “Death Grip”. Second, the antenna is capable of pulling in far weaker signals than iPhone 3GS! When the signal is at the edge of reception (around -113dBm), previous iPhones tended to drop calls and stop passing data. iPhone 4 maintains calls, and keeps moving data back and forth, albeit at a lower rate.
This testing reflects our experience: iPhone 4 does better in areas with marginal coverage than previous models. But lay your hand across the black line between the two antennas, and you can negate than advantage.
For advice on coping with this issue, see our iPhone 4 Tip Sheet.
Our speed tests did demonstrate another kind of improvement in the iPhone 4′s radio: It implements “HSUPA class 6″ for faster uploads. Class 6 devices can, in theory, hit 5.76 Mbit/sec; ours handily pushes a megabit under conditions. (The iPhone 3G and 3GS were limited to 384 kbps upload speed.) On iPhone 4, Flickr and YouTube uploads are fast.
Accessories
Apple has a solution for the antenna problem: “Bumpers”.
These $29 accessories are not quite a case, rather, they are plastic-and-rubber rings that encircle iPhone 4′s edge. Made in six colors (but only black was available on launch day), bumpers have plastic core, with rubber edges raised just a little above the glass surface, and metal volume and sleep switch buttons. The design is similar to Speck’s line of rubber-and-plastic iPhone and iPad cases; without Apple’s packaging, we’d mistake them for Speck products.
Bumpers appear to add some badly needed impact protection and grip while not detracting from the new iPhone’s sleek look. They’re very precisely made, perhaps too much so: only earphones as slim as Apple’s fit through the audio jack opening, and the iPhone USB/charging cable just barely clears. Apple’s Component Video Cable is entirely too big to fit, as are Apple’s pre-2007 USB-Dock cables; we had to remove the bumper to connect any of these. We also discovered the Dock cable included in DLO’s PowerPack charging kit doesn’t fit either, despite the “Made for iPhone” logo indicating Apple certification.
When introduced, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that Apple decided to try its hand at the iPhone case business with the new Bumpers. We can’t help but be a little suspicious that this new accessory precisely covers exactly the antenna that, when touched, causes iPhone 4 to lose its connection.
With the new design, Dock devotees will shell out another $29 this year, for the third iPhone dock design in four years. On the other hand, just $9 gets you three adapter plates for the Apple Universal Dock, and our vintage 2005 iPod Universal Dock works with only the usual complaints we have come to expect.
Speaking of docks, if you use iPhone to play videos on your TV using those pricy Apple cables and docks, you’ll have the leave the iPod app active to watch videos. Unlike music, which keeps playing when you leave the iPod app, video stops. This inconsistency is frustrating, though not new.
Missing Features
Four major releases into the iPhone software, Apple still hasn’t quite filled common wishlist items seen in the MacInTouch reader reports:
* No lock screen customization: Many people use their cell phones as pocket watches. Why not use the screen for more than a clock? Perhaps show the day’s forecast, the next appointment time, and how many unread emails have piled up?
* No Junk mail filtering: We called this out last year, and it’s still not here. Over 90% of email worldwide is spam, but iPhone is as trusting as a puppy. Server-side filtering has become common, but mail apps such as Thunderbird, Mac Mail, Outlook, and Entourage provide the last line of defense. iPhone is defenseless.
* Spotlight still limited: Spotlight can only search Apple’s system apps, not data from your other apps. The new ability to launch a web or Wikipedia search is nice, but we’d really like to be able to search our DocsToGo, Dropbox and MobileMe iDisk files, our Notably and Course Notes, and so forth. Give developers a way to integrate with Spotlight, like on the Mac.
* No HD video output: Although the iPhone 4 itself supports HD video, Apple’s component and VGA outputs are limited to 480p (at best). Apple says this is because content owners (i.e., movie studios and TV networks) won’t allow it, but if this is the case, why can’t we play our own content through these outputs? Like, say, the beautiful 720p video this very device can create and edit?
* Voice Control stagnant: It was very cool last year, even if a little limited, but Android has raised the bar with voice dictation into any text field. Step up, Apple!
Lastly, while AT&T has finally deigned to permit iPhone owners to pay extra to turn on tethering (with no extra quota, mind you!), you can only tether to a Mac or PC using USB or Bluetooth. Cables can be awkward and Bluetooth is a notorious power hog. Why not Wifi tethering? Palm’s WebOS phones and the latest Android 2.2 devices all offer Wifi tethering, and it’s a heck of a lot simpler to use than Bluetooth tethering.
CPU and Memory
Apple does say that iPhone 4 uses its new A4 processor, introduced in the iPad earlier this year. (We know from prior analysis that the A4 is a custom chip built on the ARM Cortex A8 platform used by the iPhone 3GS; see our iPad Review for more.) The iPad’s A4 is clocked at 1GHz, but Apple hasn’t published a speed for the iPhone 4, and if you use a programming interface to ask, it tells you “0.0 GHz”.
We ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark on an iPhone 3GS (upgraded to iOS4) and on an iPhone 4 for comparison. The iPhone 4 is 34% faster overall; as the 3GS is clocked at 600 MHz, this implies the iPhone 4 runs at 800 MHz. (Standard deviation of error across the sub-tests is about 5%, within SunSpider’s design limits.)
Unfortunately, SunSpider tests on the iPad are wildly different, varying anywhere from 39% faster to 53% slower! Such widely varying scores can’t be used to compare the devices. (This may indicate that either a very different version of the JavaScript engine was used in iOS 4 vs the iPad’s iOS 3.2 branch, or Apple is using a different compiler than it did a few months ago.)
Primate Labs now sells GeekBench 2 on iPhone for $4.99 on the App Store, but it requires iOS 4, so it won’t run on the iPad for comparison.
Developers have confirmed that the iPhone 4 is equipped with 512 MB of RAM, twice as much as the iPhone 3GS or iPad. (We noted that Geekbench 2 reports 503 MB — is the other 9 MB used for graphics? If so, that’s a very modest amount to reserve for 3D rendering. Until more information is available, we’ll just have to wonder.)
Video chipset
Assuming the iPhone 4′s A4 processor is not significantly changed from the iPad’s, the iPhone 4 probably uses the PowerVR SGX 535 graphics processor. iPhone game developers learned recently that iOS 4 now offers hardware antialiasing of 3D graphics on the iPhone 3GS and 4. PowerVR’s chips have supported antialiasing since the MBX in 2006 (used by the original iPhone and the 3G), but this capability was never enabled. We must assume there are performance reasons not to enable it on the MBX-equipped iPhone 3G, 2G, and first two generations of the iPod Touch.
The few games that have already adopted antialiasing look great, with smoothed edges and finer textures. Firemint’s Real Racing adds antialiasing to not just the iPhone 4, but also to the iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch; on the iPhone 4 it also runs at the full Retina Display resolution. Developers at Secret Exit have posted screenshots from the upcoming Zen Bound 2 for the iPhone, now using antialiasing, and it makes the objects look more, well, real.
Since a developer can choose to render a game at the old iPhone resolution of 480×320, and use antialiasing to pixel-double and smooth its look on the iPhone 4, this provides a way for developers to make their existing games look even better on the iPhone 4 without having to rebuild and re-optimize their graphics code entirely, or maintain a high frame rate in complex scenes that won’t run as well at full Retina resolution. This technique is combined with higher quality textures in Real Racing, showing that it works.
Also in the A4 is PowerVR’s VXD370, a media processing engine that handles duties such as encoding H.264 video from the iPhone’s cameras (and preparing video for uploading, email, or exporting from iMovie), and decoding movies to the screen.
Battery
The iPhone 4 has a 1420-mAh battery inside, for about 17% more than the iPhone 3GS’s 1219 mAh unit. Apple claims the iPhone 4 is good for 7 hours of 3G talk time, vs. the iPhone 3GS’s claimed 5 hours (which we never approached). But, so far, we’ve found the iPhone 4′s battery lasts far longer — for phone calls, Internet, video, audio, and assorted games — than our 3GS ever has, far more than the paltry 17% capacity increase accounts for. It’s clear Apple has done a lot of work to lower power consumption.
Like other iPhones, we noticed the iPhone 4 charges faster from the iPad’s 10-watt wall charger than from the more compact 5-watt unit in the iPhone box. It also charges more quickly from newer Macs’ high-power USB ports than from most pre-2009 Macs or PC USB ports.
Construction
You can open an iPhone 4 with just a #00 Phillips screwdriver. The back panel comes off, giving immediate access to the internals. There are plenty of screws inside, all tiny Phillips-head screws, rather than the Torx screws often used before. (We generally prefer Torx for their ease of use, but Phillips-head screws resist over-tightening, making it a good choice here.)
The battery is immediately accessible after removing the rear cover, and is blessedly not soldered in place. Do-it-yourself battery replacement will be much easier for the iPhone 4 vs. earlier models!
Beyond that, space is very tight inside, which may be why the iPhone 4 is the first iPhone not to double its predecessor’s flash storage. Moore’s Law appears to need another year for flash density to increase enough to fit into Apple’s ever-smaller designs.
The front glass, touch sensor and LCD, like the original iPhone but not the 3G or 3GS, forms a single component, glued together with optical-grade adhesive. This increases sharpness, brightness and contrast, and prevents dust from getting trapped in the air-gap. (Such dust often afflicts the 3G and 3GS as they age.) But, it means that if you break the glass, you’re in for an expensive repair, even if the LCD is intact.
Despite our best efforts, almost everyone drops their phone once in a while. Apple uses a hardened glass (generally believed to be Dow Corning’s “Gorilla Glass”), which is designed not just to resist cracks and scratches, but to prevent the spread of cracks perpendicular to the surface. This may be the key to the iPhone’s surprisingly durable glass face.
But with glass on both front and back, almost any drop is likely to see that Gorilla Glass take a hit. iFixit’s disassembly photos seem to show thin rubber gasket between the glass and the electronics behind it; perhaps this is meant to absorb some impact force? Time will tell just how vulnerable the iPhone 4 is.
Finally, the iPhone 4 replaces the standard SIM card, which identifies a phone to the cellular network, with a smaller MicroSIM (also used in the iPad 3G). This may cause some challenges for international travelers, as local sellers may not have MicroSIMs, but that’s handily fixed with a sharp knife and some careful cutting.
An interesting, yet-unanswered question is whether you can move iPhone 4′s SIM into an iPad 3G to enable data service. After all, you can’t use both at once, so it shouldn’t break any AT&T rules… right?
Conclusions
The iPhone 4 has, once again, reinterpreted Steve Jobs’s original concept, maintaining a core look and feel, yet changing and improving almost every aspect of the experience. We’ve described some of the new iPhone’s problems, but in practice they are more than balanced by how much it does very well.
The refreshed design is the purest example of Bauhaus style in mass production today. It is clean and elegant, with no wasted lines or curves. Every visible part of this phone has a function and every function has a beautiful form; the only nod to ornamentation is the Apple logo on the back.
The iPhone 4 feels like a luxury item — and it is. Starting with the iPod, Apple created a niche of affordable luxury consumer electronics. This new iPhone is just the latest expression of that.
The hardware inside improves the experience, most of all the Retina Display, but also the A4 processor. Using the iPhone 4 is a fast, fluid experience. (We said this about the 3GS, and again about the iPad, and it’s even more true today.) Attention to details abounds; a secondary microphone helps cancel background noise on your end of a call, while a revised speaker enclosure adds some resonance to increase volume. The battery life is definitely improved; the iPhone 4 can make it through a complete diurnal cycle, just like a portable phone should!
The new camera is the first iPhone camera that isn’t embarrassingly behind the competition — in fact, it’s really quite nice! Of course, it can’t replace a good digital SLR, but it may actually displace the snapshot cameras we routinely carry around; it’s a big plus for the new phone. HD video capability is also an upgrade from earlier iPhones. (The next improvement we’d like to see is image stabilization. Maybe next year.)
Most of our complaints about the iPhone 3GS’s software have been remedied with the iPhone 4, but you don’t have to buy an iPhone 4 to get these improvements, because iOS 4 is a free download for every iPhone 3G and 3GS owner. (But it’s the end of the line for the original iPhone, which doesn’t run iOS 4.)
A few missteps mar the great upgrade. We have our doubts about using glass for both front and back, which all but guarantees that glass will hit the ground when we inevitably drop the phone, and its antenna reception issues are troubling, to say the least. But even with a weak 3G signal, the iPhone 4 moves data faster than an iPhone 3GS, and a decent case should mitigate the risks of a drop while also helping with the reception issue.
Our upgrade advice:
* Original iPhone and iPhone 3G: Go for it. The new camera and extra speed make for an incredible experience upgrade; $199 or $299 gets you the latest and greatest; and you can still “grandfather” your unlimited data plan to iPhone 4, or you can lower your monthly bill with the $15 plan.
* iPhone 3GS: Just update to iOS4. You get almost all the new software features for free. Unless the new cameras and Retina Display are compelling enough to justify the $600 to $700 purchase cost, your best bet is to wait until next year — then upgrade at a fully subsidized price to iPhone 5! (Which, if we’re lucky, will be redesigned for improved ruggedness.)
* New Customers: If you are buying your first iPhone, you can get last year’s 3GS for just $99. It’s a good phone, though with a mediocre camera, but considering that you are committing to two years with it, give serious thought to spending the extra $100 for an iPhone 4 instead. We doubt you’ll regret it.