I woke up early this morning and arrived at my friendly neighborhood AT&T store two hours before the 7am opening, making me first in line (although only by about a minute). I brought work with me, so the two hour wait actually went by very quickly and was quite productive. By 7am, there were almost 50 people in line behind me, and the rumor was that the store only had 50 phones, so hopefully those in the back will get one. By 7:15, I left with my new iPhone 4, and it is syncing with my computer and loading up all of my apps as I type this.
I haven't tried it enough to have any real opinions yet, except to say OH MY GOODNESS THIS SCREEN IS BEAUTIFUL. I look forward to getting to know this new iPhone over the coming days.
There are three new reviews of the iPhone 4 that are notable and that have gotten me excited to play with mine. First, Jason Snell of Macworld published his review yesterday, and as is to be expected, it is a well-written, useful review. Second, late last night, Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun Times published his 6,000 word review that is perhaps my second favorite review so far, behind only Joshua Topolsky's excellent review for Engadget. Ihnatko's review is packed with details and fun to read. If you can only read two reviews, read the ones by Topolsky and Ihnatko and decide which review you like best; I can't decide.
Finally, Jason Chen of Gizmodo — yes, that Jason Chen of that Gizmodo — published yesterday afternoon what he calls a "review" but what is really more of an essay or a short story describing the first day in his life as an iPhone 4 owner. Given Chen's history with the iPhone 4, it makes sense for him to do something different. I don't agree with all of his complaints about the iPhone 4. For example, I don't think it is a problem that the iPhone doesn't come with free turn-by-turn navigation because that would hurt competition and I like that we have several compelling alternative commercial apps to provide navigation assistance. Indeed, I wonder if part of the reason that Apple still hasn't updated its simple Weather app is that the third party weather apps are numerous and sophisticated, so there is nothing to be gained and much to be lost by Apple competing in that space. Nevertheless, Chen's article is a good read and does provide some interesting perspectives. For example, when discussing FaceTime, he notes: "The camera and screen are so close that they create the illusion of a camera behind Matt's eyes—so I really feel like we're talking face to face. When Skyping someone on a laptop, they're always looking at me on their screen—away from their webcam." I hadn't thought about that.
I loved my original iPhone (the one pictured at the top of this website), I loved my iPhone 3GS even more, and now I can't wait to start using my new iPhone 4. I just wish it had finished syncing before I got to the end of this post!
