This past Friday, Apple announced that because a small number of people are experiencing problems with phone reception on the iPhone 4 when they touch the antenna on the bottom left side of the device, Apple is allowing all iPhone 4 customers to get a free iPhone case. Apple will allow you to select either its own Apple iPhone 4 Bumper case or other select cases. We don't know yet what the other choices will be, but I have been using the Bumper on my iPhone 4 for about a week now, and for the most part I like it, although there are some drawbacks. If you are considering whether to select the Bumper as your free case, perhaps my experiences will help you make your decision.
THE GOOD
Easy to put on and off. Putting on the bumper is easy, as demonstrated by the simple instructions printed on the back of the packaging. You just slip it around the iPhone 4. It only takes a few seconds.
Doesn't distract much from the feel of the iPhone. I am not a fan of cases for the iPhone, and I have never used a case for my prior iPhones (the iPhone 3 and the iPhone 3GS). For the most part, I feel the same way about the iPhone 4. I like the feel of the iPhone in my hand, and I don't like the feel of anything on the glass of the front of the iPhone. For people like me, the Bumper has the advantage of being the "un-case" because it is so minimal and does not cover the front or the back of the iPhone.
Doesn't distract too much from the design of the iPhone. Another reason that I don't like traditional cases is that they completely cover up the iPhone. I love the design of the iPhone and I hate to hide it. Although the Bumper does hide the distinctive stainless steel antenna that surrounds the iPhone (a look that I really like), the design of the Bumper itself is very nice. I've heard people say that you can just take a rubber bracelet and wrap it around the iPhone to duplicate the bumper. That is wrong. The bumper is not just a piece of rubber. The actual sides of the bumper are a nice, smooth plastic, and the feel is similar to the feel of the curved sides of the iPhone 3 / 3GS. The rubber part is about and below that strip. As a result, you don't feel like you are holding rubber in your hand when you hold an iPhone in a bumper, instead the feel is quite smooth. Nevertheless, the presence of the rubber part of the Bumper does add friction (which I discuss below).
Additionally, the case doesn't just have cutout holes for the buttons, but instead includes its own very nice volume and power buttons that sit on top of the iPhone button. There is just a hole for the ringer on/off switch, which means that you need to use a fingernail to really reach that switch. If you frequently turn your ringer on and off, this might be a problem for you. But using the other buttons works great and looks great too.
If you want some great close-up pictures of the Bumper, check out this iLounge post by Jeremy Horwitz (who happens to be an attorney, just FYI).
Keep a grip on your iPhone. Many case manufacturers advertise that their product provides added protection for the iPhone. Interestingly, Apple does not. Here is how Apple describes the Bumper on the iPhone portion of the website:
Dress up your iPhone 4 with a Bumper. Choose one of six colors — white, black, blue, green, orange, or pink — and slip it around the edge of your iPhone 4. With metal buttons for volume and power, two-tone colors, and a combination of rubber and molded plastic, Bumpers add a touch of style to any iPhone 4.
Clearly, Apple is positioning the Bumper as simply a fashion accessory, making no promises that the Bumper will protect your iPhone. Interesting. I suspect that if you drop an iPhone 4 on a hard surface, depending upon how the iPhone hits, you might get more protection with the Bumper than without it, but that doesn't mean that you can't easily damage an iPhone 4 by dropping it, even with a bumper. For example, here is a video on YouTube showing that you can still damage an iPhone 4 even with a Bumper on it:
Nevertheless, I do think that the Bumper gives you real protection, not so much because it can withstand a fall onto concrete, but instead because the Bumper reduces the chance that you would drop the iPhone in the first place. The added friction of the rubber portion of the Bumper makes it much less likely for the iPhone 4 to slip out of your hand or out of your pocket.
Indeed, this is both a blessing and a curse. At work, I always keep my iPhone in my shirt pocket, and without a case it is easy to slip the iPhone in and out. With the Bumper, it is more difficult to do so. I have less concern about the iPhone falling out by accident if I lean over (the good) but it is more of a pain to pull out my iPhone and return it to my pocket when I am done (the bad). And this humorous post points out how this might be a problem if you wear tight blue jeans.
Indeed, this is the #1 reason that I like the Bumper. It significantly reduces the chance that I will drop the iPhone when it is in my hands. Just yesterday, for example, I decided to use the Bumper while I was in my house, and while I was walking upstairs my foot caught a stair the wrong way and I started to trip. Yes, I really am that graceful sometimes. I have no doubt that but for the Bumper, I would have dropped my iPhone, and I can only what would have happened to it as it fell down each of the stairs in my house. Ouch. But with the Bumper, I kept my grip on the iPhone. It was at that moment that I realized the true value of the Bumper.
Fashion. Since Apple plays up the fashion aspect of the Bumper, I suppose I should mention it here. Apple offers bumpers in different colors, so if you are looking to add a splash of color to the iPhone 4, you can get that with a Bumper. I'm not looking for that, so I just chose the basic black. But if you want to add color without getting in the way of the beautiful glass front and back of the iPhone, the Bumper will give you what you want.
Stays in place. The rubber portion of the Bumper makes it less likely for the iPhone to slip out of your hand, but it is worth noting that it also helps to keep the iPhone in place in other locations. If your iPhone is just sitting on your desk without a Bumper, I can easily see someone not paying attention and knocking the iPhone off of the desk. But with the Bumper attached, the rubber keeps the iPhone in place. It's not going anywhere unless you want it to. Also, if you want to tilt your iPhone at an angle, leaning against a book perhaps, so that you can view a movie or pictures on the screen, using the Bumper makes it very easy to do this. Without the Bumper, if you try to prop up the iPhone at an angle on a flat surface, it is going to slip and fall. Indeed, I have actually had occasions in the past when someone has called my iPhone while it was on mute and the vibration of the iPhone as it "rang" has caused the iPhone to move across the surface. If the iPhone is on the edge of a desk or table, your iPhone might "walk" itself right over the edge. That will not happen with the Bumper on the iPhone.
Antenna. And of course, if you find that you accidentally touch the part of the iPhone antenna that reduces reception, you won't have that problem with the Bumper. Obviously, that is the reason that Apple decided to give away cases like the Bumper for free. If you usually talk with your iPhone in your left hand, and if you are often in areas with marginal AT&T coverage, the Bumper may make it less likely for you to lose a signal and drop a call.
THE BAD
Accessories. My main gripe with the Bumper is that it doesn't work well with many accessories. It has a hole in the bottom for the connector port, so you can easily plug in the cord that connects to the USB port on your computer. But I also have a similar cord on the equipment that I use to connect my iPhone to my car stereo, and I suppose that plug must be a tad bigger because I cannot get it to fit in the slot of the bottom of the Bumper. I can see what is happening — Apple doesn't just cut a hole in the bottom of the Bumper, but also reinforces the hole with a plastic frame, as you can (sort of) see in the following picture. (You can click to enlarge.) That design decision helps to keep the Bumper more sturdy because there is a plastic frame around the Bumper, but because of the amount of plastic in the hole, it reduces the size of the hole for the connector port. It's a tight fit, and while it works for the cord that Apple gives you to connect to your computer, it doesn't work with some other cords.
Similarly, I use (and love) my Bose SoundDock Portable speaker system but the connector doesn't make sufficient contact when the Bumper is around the iPhone 4. And it's not just third party accessories: I use an Apple iPhone 4 Dock and because that dock is molded to the exact shape of the iPhone 4, you have to remove the Bumper every time you want to use the dock. What a pain. On the other hand, you can use a Bumper with the Apple Universal Dock if you don't use any insert adapters. (To be more specific, none of the iPhone adapters work; there might be a larger adapter made for an iPod that could be used.)
The headphone jack hole is also more recessed when you use the Bumper and the hole itself is tight. So far, all of my headphones do fit, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that some third party headphones don't fit as well with a Bumper. For example, Art of the iPhone reports that a pair of Sennheiser CX300s headphones wouldn’t fit with the Bumper attached.
[UPDATE: Attorney Katie Floyd — who hosts the great Mac Power Users podcast along with attorney David "MacSparky" Sparks — posted a long comment to this post that is worth reading. Regarding accessories, she had this to say:
1) My friend Allison Sheridan of the Nosillacast Podcast hosted at podfeet.com notes that if you use a dremmel tool and file out the little "ledge" on the inside of the bumper at the dock connector, you can get a few more connectors to fit. I've been a little hesitant to do so.
2) I spoke with the folks over at SendStation about their Dock Extender product. Unfortunately, it does not work with the Apple bumper. But they're working on an updated model that will. They say it will likely be a few months before they have something in production.
3) SendStation's suggestion was to "modify" your existing peripherals by slightly filing off the edges of the plugs by a few millimeters to make them fit. Again, makes me nervous so I haven't tried this myself. Apparently there are some videos on YouTube of people doing this. I advise caution.
4) The Universal dock sold by Apple will work with the bumper but without any inserts. It won’t work even with larger iPod insets. The problem is that because the case ads a few millimeters of distance between the dock connector and the port the connector isn’t long enough to fully connect. You have to remove the universal adapters all together and you’ll find that this allows the connection. This approach works as well with some of my third party accessories including my iHome speakers with a dock connector. Of course, the universal dock connector is $50 compared to the iPhone dock’s $30 price tag so you’re spending $20 more per dock.
Thanks, Katie, for the information.]
Oleophobic Screen. One of the things that I love about the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4 is the oleophobic screen. I get smudges on my iPhone screen all the time, but with just a simple wipe on my shirt, the smudges disappear thanks to the coating on the screen. Unfortunately, with the Bumper on the iPhone, this is harder to do. The rubber around the edges causes friction so you cannot easily slide an iPhone in a Bumper against your shirt. Instead, you have to more deliberately take a part of your shirt or some other cloth to wipe the screen without touching the Bumper. It's a minor inconvenience, but one that I don't like.
Minimal Protection. I noted above that an advantage of the Bumper, for people like me who are not big fans of cases, is that it is so minimal. But if you are looking for more protection, the Bumper might not be enough for you. For example, my wife tells me that she likes knowing that she can toss her iPhone into a purse without worrying about keys or some other items scratching the iPhone. Thus, she wants a case that completely covers the back and sides of the iPhone and wants something like the InvisibleShield protecting the front screen. Of course, you could just use the Bumper along with an InvisibleShield on the front and back, but with a full rubberized style case that surrounds the entire iPhone, you are likely to have more protection if you drop the iPhone and something (like a concrete sidewalk) hits a corner or the back.
Conclusion. Because I know that I normally don't like to use cases, I forced myself to use the Bumper for an entire week so that I could get to know all of the advantages and all of the quirks. Now that my self-imposed deadline has passed, I plan to remove the Bumper for most of my everyday use. But that doesn't mean that I don't like the Bumper and won't use it from time to time. Hopefully, I'll be using it the next time I trip on the stairs. I also plan to use the Bumper whenever I travel to make it less likely for the iPhone to slip out of my hand at an airport or out of my pocket in a cab. And I'm sure that I will use it from time to time at home or at the office when I want to more easily prop up my iPhone on its side or when I want to put the iPhone on a flat surface such as a table without worry about it sliding off.
At its original price of $30, I would have said that the Bumper was overpriced but valuable enough that you should consider getting it for your iPhone 4, even if (like me) you are normally not a fan of iPhone cases. But now that Apple is giving Bumpers away for free, it seems like an easy decision to get one — unless you prefer the features in another case that Apple will be offering starting later this week.
