iPhone 4 is here ... but with problems
I was one of the few that was lucky enough on June 14th to get through the busy phone lines to reserve a new iPhone 4. Due to the "...Overwhelming Response..." wait times were longer than normal if you could even get through. Once I was able to speak to a Apple sales representative the first time, I was told that their ordering system had crashed; that they were aware of the problem and were doing all they could to fix it; lastly, that I should call back in a "hour or so" to try again. So again I waded thru busy signals and finally got thru to a rep. to try again. They said they were still having problems but that I could put in a reservation, good for one day, to pick a phone up at an Apple Store location.
So on June 24th, I head down to the mall, where I had reserved my phone, expecting that the lines should have died down a bit around 11am. I was shocked to find the lines actually extended outside the mall into the parking lot.
Not wanting to take the chance that they might not get to the end of the line by the time hours in line for the new iPhone 4, I wait in line for about 4 hours. Apple employees did come out with water and a few snacks while we waited. Once I made it to the end of the line, however, I made a small mistake. I just bought the phone with out opening the box and making sure it worked. I get home only to find that the touch screen doesn't respond to anything. Restored to factory settings and cold rebooted it with no effect. I was able to accept a few phone calls by using the headset button to answer them but was never able to actually use any other function of the phone via the touch screen. I called the Apple Store that I purchase the phone from, and explained to them what happened. At first, they told me they were out of phones and I would have to wait. After some arguing with a store manager I was able to get them to agree to do an exchange. After getting the new phone, however, it would not activate with AT&T. It was explained to me that their servers were busy and just wait. More than a few hours later the phone still had not activated and I did a soft reset (hold down power + Home button for 10 seconds). After that, I was able to activate the phone.
Finally I was able to explore all of the new features that the iPhone 4 has to offer. Most notably, a new feature of the iPhone OS 4 is muli-tasking. I now was able to run Pandora in the background and use all of the iPod controls from the headset to skip songs or pause playback. It will still play while you are working in other applications as well. To get to your ipod / Pandora controls, double-press your home button and then slide your thumb across the open apps to the right. You will now see where you can lock your screen orientation, pause, skip or play your current music selection and go to the iPod / Pandora main page. This feature is also available to 3GS users with the iPhone OS 4 update.
Things you won't find on your 3GS are the higher resolution screen (960x640 vs 480x320), the 5MP camera, the apple A4 processor, Dual-mic noise surpression, three axis gyro, 802.11n Wi-Fi3 support along with a/b/g, LED light for video or photos, HD video recording, roughly 7 hours total talk time (2 hours more than 3GS), 6 hours 3G / 10 hours WiFi internet browsing (that's one more hour vs the 3GS), and 40 hours audio playback on your iPod (10 more hours than 3GS) and lastly the FaceTime front side camera. It only works when you call another iPhone 4 however. (NOT a 3GS). Simply click the "FaceTime" button during your phone call and you can start a video conference call.
For a complete list of phone specs read on...
…
iPhone 4 Technical Specifications
Size and weight1
Height:4.5 inches (115.2 mm) Width:2.31 inches (58.6 mm)Depth:0.37 inch (9.3 mm)Weight:4.8 ounces (137 grams)
Cellular and wireless
- UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz)
- GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
- 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz only)
- Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR wireless technology
Location
- Assisted GPS
- Digital compass
- Wi-Fi
- Cellular
Power and battery2
- Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery
- Charging via USB to computer system or power adapter
- Talk time:Up to 7 hours on 3GUp to 14 hours on 2G
- Standby time: Up to 300 hours
- Internet use:Up to 6 hours on 3GUp to 10 hours on Wi-Fi
- Video playback: Up to 10 hours
- Audio playback: Up to 40 hours
Mac system requirements
- Mac computer with USB 2.0 port
- Mac OS X v10.5.8 or later
- iTunes 9.2 or later (free download from www.itunes.com/download)
- iTunes Store account
- Internet access
Windows system requirements
- PC with USB 2.0 port
- Windows 7; Windows Vista; or Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 3 or later
- iTunes 9.2 or later (free download from www.itunes.com/download)
- iTunes Store account
- Internet access
Environmental requirements
- Operating temperature: 32° to 95° F
(0° to 35° C) - Nonoperating temperature: -4° to 113° F
(-20° to 45° C) - Relative humidity: 5% to 95% noncondensing
- Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet (3000 m)
Capacity3
- 16GB or 32GB flash drive
Color
- White or black
Display
- Retina display
- 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display
- 960-by-640-pixel resolution at 326 ppi (3GS only has a 480 by 320 resolution, a noticable upgrade)
- 800:1 contrast ratio (typical)
- 500 cd/m2 max brightness (typical)
- Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating on front and back
- Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously
Audio playback
- Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
- Audio formats supported: AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), HE-AAC, MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV
- User-configurable maximum volume limit
TV and video
- Video formats supported: H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format
- Support for 1024 by 768 pixels with Dock Connector to VGA Adapter; 576p and 480p with Apple Component AV Cable; 576i and 480i with Apple Composite AV Cable (cables sold separately)
Up is available on iTunes. Up © Disney/Pixar. All rights reserved.
Languages
- Language support for English (U.S.), English (UK), French (France), German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Arabic, Thai, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malay, Romanian, Slovak, Croatian, Catalan, and Vietnamese
- Keyboard support for English (U.S.), English (UK), French (France), French (Canadian), French (Switzerland), German, Traditional Chinese (Handwriting, Pinyin, Zhuyin, Cangjie, Wubihua), Simplified Chinese (Handwriting, Pinyin, Wubihua), Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Korean, Japanese (Romaji), Japanese (Kana), Russian, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Estonian, Hungarian, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Latvian, Flemish, Arabic, Thai, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malay, Romanian, Slovak, Croatian, Bulgarian, Serbian (Cyrillic/Latin), Catalan, and Vietnamese
- Dictionary support (enables predictive text and autocorrect) for English (U.S.), English (UK), French, German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Korean, Japanese (Romaji), Japanese (Kana), Russian, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Flemish, Arabic, Thai, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malaysian, Romanian, Slovak, Croatian, Catalan, and Vietnamese