So it’s here, the iPhone 4. I’m not sure what I think about it, yesterday I was all set to get rid of my iPhone 3G and going with TMobile but I have to say I love the design of the new iPhone and the camera features are really tempting – especially now that I’m doing a lot of video for EM. I like the idea of having iBooks on my phone and it was funny watching Steve Jobs talk about the new features of iBooks like it was revolutionary when my Kindle App is already available everywhere, keeps track of where I am in my books and has a bigger selection. I do like the idea of being able to read PDFs directly in iBooks. The phone comes will be available in a 8Gig 3GS version at $99, 16-Gig at $199 and $299 for the high-end 32-Gig model. The price is surprisingly reasonable, I’m surprised ATT is letting people out of their contracts up to 6 months early to upgrade to the new phone. Of course my current contract expires next March so it does me no good. I was disappointed that there is no 64 or 80 Gig option, the screen size is exactly the same and the lack of a screen lock button – the constant rotation drives me nuts. So let’s rundown some of the key new features.
Multitasking
The iPhone finally gets multitasking with the new iOS update. This means I could listen to Pandora and use my iPhone GPS at the same time – only problem is ATT is “capping” data at 2 Gigs. Imagine going on a long 4 or 6 hour car trip and streaming music all the way. That’s going to eat into your data plan.
LED Flash and Zoom Finally comes to iPhone Camera
The new 5-Megapixels Camera includes a new LED Flash and a 5X tap to zoom feature. There’s a new front facing camera added so you can shoot those nice self portraits.
Video with iMovie
The iPhone throws the gauntlet down with both a front and back video camera that shoots HD quality video. For an additional $4.99 you can download the new iMovie app and edit video directly on your camera
2 Microphones
The new iPhone has a Microphone at the top and bottom of the hardware.
High-Rez Screen
Apple is claiming their new “Retina” technology is going to make their new screen magical. I’m disappointed that it’s not bigger. I do love the look of this build and the all glass design.
Netflix App
Netflix hit it big on the iPad, now their streaming App comes to the iPhone! Again, thanks to ATT, good luck trying to stream a lot of content from Netflix with a 2Gig cap.
FaceTime – Video Chat
Just shoot me, I’m not vain enough to want someone to always watch me when I’m on the phone. So the idea of video chatting has no appeal to me. But the iPhone 4.0 has it, it’s limited to chatting with only other iPhone 4 users and you have to use WiFi, no 3G yet.
Thethering
ATT is finally going to allow tethering for iPhone users, only problem is, again the 2GB cap. In case you couldn’t tell I don’t trust any of these caps and don’t care what people say, I’ve had really bad experiences with them and it isn’t like do Hulu. But I do listen to a lot of podcasts, so if I’m in a hotel and I download my Gig of podcasts, I’m done for the month. Not to mention they rarely download, so I end up eating up a lot of data that I can’t even use. The only thing these services are good for is basic web surfing and checking email anything more than that and they’ll screw you.
I have a 3G and a 64 Gig iPod Touch, the video and improvements to the Camera and Microphone makes it really tempting. I’m surprised by how much I like the updates, but I don’t like it enough to bite.