iPhone iOS 4.0.1 - Fixed Nothing

Like many of you may already know, I own an iphone 4. I'm very happy with it mostly, however fundamentally, it is a phone, and it does not work. Yesterday, Apple released iPhone 4.0.1 which seemed to only fix how the bars are represented. Before the download I had 4-5 bars, after the download, I have 3 bars. WHOOP-te-do.

• I still can drop a call by holding the phone like most people hold a phone.
• The proximity sensor still is buggy. It is still easy to cheek dial with the phone.
• The camera app still takes 20 seconds to load.

In short, Apple claims their stuff 'just works'. But in reality, they dropped the ball. Hopefully they will soon be fixing it, and going back to making stuff work. As for now... Apple just doesn't work.

I want the iPhone 4 ... the one with more GB's

iPhone 4 Antenna Snafu - Bad Touching the Phone!

Apple has released their new iPhone 4 to much fanfare! Quickly though, the excitement turned to outcry as the phones were shown to drop calls when held in the left hand. The problem is when a user bridges the gap between the two external antennas. Or to paraphrase Apple.... Bad Touching.

Interestingly, a Danish Professor predicted that the external iPhone 4 antenna would not perform as well as claimed by Apple. What this Snafu really means for Apple and AT&T has yet to play out, but those following iPhone stores know, the redesign was in response to poor call quality in the 3Gs design.

Apple has said 1) we the public are holding the iPhone 4 incorrectly (as if my 40 years of phone usage has been an exercise in futility) and 2) they will be patching their software to address this issue, however... this does not appear to be a software issue, but a fundamental antenna physics problem. What this means is everyone will need to buy a case for their phone to solve an Apple generated problem (and in turn make even more money for Apple).

"We strongly recommend you go and read it right now, but here's a taster of the beautifully worded explanation: "[The aerial design] would be fine... except for one design component. The user. Users have hands and hands are made of flesh, which to a radio wave looks like a big bag of conductive saline solution. As submariners know, if you surround an antenna with a large lump of salty water, it stops working: it's shielded from the outside again, and its electrical length will change dramatically."
--- CNET

More tests to the iPhone 4 glass faces.

Now with the iPhone 4 officially released, the people over at iFixYouri Have repeated their drop test to test the iPhone 4 glass. Really, it may be stronger to hold up to daily finger usage, however it appears that with just a few drops, the glass will shatter.

I know I, as well as many others, were hoping for a harder plastic surface which could withstand more abuse. It appears with Apple's design to expose the edge of the glass, that more damage could be done, than if the glass edging was protected more. More tests I'm sure will be done to the phones, and more solid conclusions will follow.