Today is the big day. The iPhone 4 has officially been released and thousands of people are spending their time standing in line to get Apple’s shiniest and newest toy. Fortunately for our readers here at MacPoker, we’ve managed to get ourselves ahead of the lines thanks to some good planning. Without further delay, here are our first impressions of the new iPhone 4.
Brag: Today is my five-year wedding anniversary and my wife checked my account, confirmed I was good for an upgrade, and pre-ordered the iPhone 4 for me as a gift.
Beat: She failed to pre-order it and I had to go to the AT&T Store and wait in line for an hour on the first day you could pre-order it to make sure I got it on the 24th.
Brag: I was the 12th person in line at my store and they said I should get a device on the 24th. I had it shipped to their store so I could pick it up.
Beat: I didn’t get my shipping notice until the night of the 23rd from FedEx and there was no way for me to know when it would arrive at the store. In the morning, we called the store, which confirmed that they had not had the delivery show up yet and had no iPhone 4s, but they would call “at their earliest convenience” to let me know when it would arrive.
Brag: UPS showed up at my door at 12:30pm today and delivered a box to me. Yup – the new iPhone 4 had somehow been re-routed from the store to my home.
The box is similar to all of the other iPhone boxes, with a nice color graphic of the phone on its face and “iPhone 4” written in a shiny metallic font. Opening up the packaging also revealed an AT&T Quick Start guide, which will be helpful for iPhone noobies. Fortunately for me, this is my third iPhone, so I know what I am doing. Opening up the box reveals the phone, which is thinner and easier to hold than my old iPhone 3GS.
They say you need to plug it in to charge for a little bit, so I looked inside the box for the charger. The charger is the new thin one and comes with the USB cable that can plug into your computer or into the AC adapter. Also included are ear buds, which have been useless for me since they always pop out of my ear. Finally, there are some obligatory Apple stickers and helpful pamphlet about using the iPhone 4. After about 20 seconds of being plugged into the wall, the iPhone is begging me to pop it into iTunes, but I instantly notice how amazing this screen is compared to the old generation of phones.
Then the floor falls out of my iPhone parade as the next two-and-a-half hours are spent unsuccessfully trying to activate it. Maybe it is due to all of the people trying to activate it, but as it stands, I have to call in to AT&T to find out why my phone will not activate. After another 30 minutes of utter frustration, as it turns out, AT&T had assigned the wrong SIM to my phone. They put in the correct SIM information and after another 15 minutes of tinkering with the phone – it worked.
First impressions:
– It’s slightly heavier, but also thinner. The new design makes it easier to hold in your hand.
– The screen and its new HD resolution are stunning. It’s a huge upgrade in terms of quality.
– The camera is very impressive and takes amazing pictures and video.
– Using the new iOS 4 is also a real treat, as you can multitask between apps as well as create folders (which seems like it was very overdue for iPhones).
– The speed of the unit and its overall functioning seem a lot quicker. I am sure whenever someone pulls together a speed index, it’ll show a tremendous difference from the 3GS.
That’s the iPhone 4 experience in a nutshell. It’s sleek, it’s pretty, and hopefully you don’t fare like I did and have a headache activating it. Other friends of mine installed and activated it with a breeze so chances are you should be fine. The quality of the new iPhone is really impressive and really is a nice upgrade from the 3GS.
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