Living in a tech-savvy house as I do, with apologies to my long suffering wife, I spent last Thursday with my eldest offspring queuing outside Brighton’s Apple Store for 4 hours.
What fun, that was! I was glad he’d pre-ordered it, as he would have been very disappointed, as they ran out after about 2 hours for those people just chancing to purchase one. But we were successful and walked away very happy!
I, on the other hand, had to wait for my service provider to get themselves into gear to send me mine by DHL – far more civilised, yet considerably slower.
So over last weekend, I’ve had a chance to crawl over the new device and thought I’d share my first impressions of Apple’s new baby. I’ll also try not to delve into areas that other far more qualified people have commented on.
So in a nutshell, here are my observations:
- Heavier – it’s larger and heavier than the iPhone 3GS – it has glass on both sides which gives the device a substantial feel
- Display – the new high resolution display is gorgeous – crisp and clear, with text looking like a printed page
- Video Calling – FaceTime is the new video conferencing system that Apple has developed for the iPhone 4 – it’s good and works like the Mac’s iChat – only WiFi at present, but still very good
- Cameras – the new higher resolution camera is excellent and combined with iMovie, can produce HD video footage and edit the results in real time – stunning. There’s a front facing camera too for FaceTime
- Speed – it’s significantly quicker than the old iPhones – in fact, it has as much grunt as the recently launched iPad – I can’t help thinking, a new version of the iPad will be out soon.
- iOS4 – the new name for the iPhone Operating System – this is available for earlier versions, too, and adds some good extra functions
There have been some press comments about signal attenuation when holding the device, but this is something I’ve not experienced – in fact, the performance of the radio is a lot better than the 3GS, with usable signal in my office, where previously I struggled on the O2 network. Also, once the unit is fitted with one of the new ‘bumpers’, a case manufactured for the first time by Apple, then all the exposed aluminium antennae are covered and so the ‘problem’ disappears – if you don’t have a bumper, then maybe taking Steve Jobs advice might help – “just don’t hold it that way”!
So is it a game changer? Well, Apple has responded well to its competitors – as we’ve mentioned before, it still is going to be interesting to see whether its controlling ethos will prevail or the more open ‘morals’ of Android will become more ubiquitous, but Apple do keep on changing the shape of the football pitch.
With innovations like iAds, the ability to monetise software developments more easily adds to Apple’s armoury and will no doubt change the way in which apps are funded which might encourage more to join the development game.
