Another year, another iPhone right? It's only natural to see an abundance of consumers get giddy knowing that Apple is launching their latest iPhone every summer – from what we've been experiencing so far. The iPhone 4 received the biggest makeover to date with its packed internal hardware, updated looks, and premium materials. Tallying in at a mere 0.37” in thickness makes it one of the slimmest smartphones ever crafted (probably the slimmest) – and it truly embodies the essence that Apple naturally radiates in the design of their products. We definitely adore how it manages to combine a nostalgic and modern approach to its design which is only supplemented with the finest of materials to make it stand out among the crop. Pretty much everything under the hood received a major overhaul – we especially love the detailed Retina Display.
Software wise, iOS 4 has refreshed the handset and continues to showcase Apple's stance in offering an intuitive platform that can easily be adopted by a broad range of customers. Simple and straightforward is the game when it comes to navigating across the platform as anyone will have an easy time with its short learning curve. However, it still has a lot to go in truly embodying the aura of perfection. Personalization is still lax, even after Apple's fourth iPhone, but they've only begun to break the mold – so hopefully things down the pipeline may address its shortcomings.
The Apple iPhone 4 is not the perfect phone. It suffers from certain problems with its signal reception (at least some units do), call quality is not excellent, photos taken with the 5MP camera are pretty good, but we've seen better, FaceTime is only available via Wi-Fi for the moment, multitasking is yet to be utilized by developers... We can always find a bunch of drawbacks to exploit. However, over the years we've come to believe that it is fairly easy to point out the exact disadvantages of the iPhone. And, in a way, we believe this is because everything else found under the hood works like a dream. From dialing a contact, through web browsing, to playing a 3D game - there's hardly a phone on the market that does all that in an easier and more seamless way.
It all comes down to personal preference. The Apple iPhone 4 has a display of better quality, but smaller size, when compared, for example, to the HTC EVO 4G, Motorola DROID X or Samsung Galaxy S – some of the best Android phones out there. The iPhone 4 lacks the 4G connectivity (which, as a matter of fact, you might never get), but its App Store sports about 4 times more apps, with each being about 5 times better in value. Its iOS 4.0 does not feature active homescreen widgets to show you what the weather is like on the outside, like Android does, but it would never freeze, crash or lag. As we said, it's all a matter of personal taste.
So our advice is... simply decide for yourself what you want from your smartphone, and how you want it.
