Monthly Archives: July 2010

iPhone 4 reception

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For the past two years, I got accustomed to not making phone calls while driving to or from work. It’s an 18 minute drive and in the middle of the drive, around 99 & 105th, my call would get dropped. Every single time. During those two years I used an original, 3G, and 3G S iPhone.

I picked up my iPhone 4 on June 24th. I used my phone a lot that day, calling via FaceTime and normal calls. During my drive home from work, I stayed connected all the way home, for the very first time.

A few days later, I was at a lecture at the Mountaineers on Sand Point Way. AT&T coverage there is meager at best. I experimented there with a SSH session to my home computer, and kept the connection up for almost an hour. That would never have worked with my older iPhones.

This last weekend I climbed Mt. Rainier again. Most of the climbers in our party left their phones in the truck at the trailhead. That is generally wise. Trying to use a mobile phone in the mountains is typically an exercise in frustration.

I had preloaded my iPhone with topo maps of the area and took it out every hour or so to capture waypoints. While pocketed, I had the iPhone in Airplane Mode, which disables all the radios (phone, GPS, wifi). To take waypoints, I’d toggle off Airplane Mode, let the GPS sync, take the waypoint, toggle Airplane Mode back on, and put the phone away.

The surprise was that nearly every time I turned off Airplane Mode, I had an AT&T signal. Getting a signal is one thing. Being able to use it is entirely another. None of us climbers believed it was usable reception until I was able to send out a SMS to each of our wives, letting them know we had gotten permits and were on the route we had hoped to climb.

I can replicate the signal meter issue that so many people have made a big deal about by holding it the wrong way. Then my reception is comparable to previous iPhones (a single bar of coverage in my downstairs). When I avoid holding it that way, I can get outstanding reception. I am quite pleased with the reception of my new iPhone.

Twitt

bottomless pits

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This morning Jen was in the kitchen pitting Rainier cherries. I’m in the dining room, stemming Rainier cherries. Lucas trotted into kitchen, saw mommy pitting cherries and started to help. Mommy swelled with pride at her little helper. When the last cherry was pitted and dropped into the bowl, a burst of laughter erupted as Jen realized exactly who Lucas was assisting.

Lucas pranced around the corner with his prize, a bowl of pitted Rainier cherries cradled against his chest, with one hand shoveling cherries from the bowl to the mouth. He placed the bowl at his place and climbed up into his chair, intent on consuming an entire cherry cobbler’s worth of cherries in a single go.

I think that boy and I may be related.

 

Twitt

iPhone 4 early impressions

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The good:

  • FaceTime. It works. It is easy. Video quality is surprisingly good. Audio quality is excellent. The audio quality I’ve experienced is better than an iPhone call, Skype, or iChat AV.
  • The video camera does remarkably well in changing lighting conditions. I can walk around the house while on a FaceTime call and my image remains clear and well exposed as the lighting change. It’s far more fun to FaceTime my sleeping babies to a friend with an iPhone than a laptop.
  • Phone voice quality is improved. Callers sound better and they report that I sound better too. My buddy Mike, 2,000 miles away in Michigan, reported that the quality was as if I was standing next to him.
  • The Retina Display is amazing. After getting the iPad, I had reduced my  reading on the iPhone to those times when I didn’t have a computer or iPad. I still prefer reading on the iPad, but I find myself reading more on the 4. While the iPad is in arms reach. I am continually surprised at the rendering and legibility of teeny tiny type.
  • Speed. The 3GS was a huge performance boost over the 3G. While the 3GS was no slouch, I still saw occasional pauses and delays in responsiveness. I have yet to see any lags or pauses on the iPhone 4.
  • Reception. My experience has been entirely positive. I was able to drive all the way home from work while holding a call. For the first time. I explained the reception issue to a friend, “Imagine you have an AT&T phone with poor reception (nearly all of them, including iPhones) and suddenly you get one with very good reception. Except when you have poor coverage and hold the phone wrong. Would you be disappointed?”
  • Battery life is greatly improved. I’ve had my 4 for a week and have charged it three times. Every previous iPhone had to be charged nightly. I suspect that when the novelty wears off and I’ve beaten all the levels in Angry Birds, I may get 3 days of ‘normal’ usage from a charge.

The Bad

  • I love how pocketable the 3G is. I carried the 3G and 3GS in my front pants pocket, vertically, with the glass against my leg and the curved plastic back facing out. The curved back nearly matched the profile of my leg, and that position protected the glass screen. I rarely noticed its presence. Being narrower, the 4 likes to  slide down and ride sideways. That produces a larger and less comfortable bulge, which I regularly correct. While the 4 is thinner, it often feels thicker while pocketed.
  • The 4 is glass on both sides. When I heard Apple describe the glass as 20 times stiffer and 30 times stronger than plastic, warning bells went off. While working in mechanical engineering departments, I enjoyed spending time in the prototype labs. Especially when that time ended by filling out forms with the words, “consumed in testing.” Whether plastic, metal, or glass, harder materials are more brittle. I do believe the 4 will be more scratch resistant. And possibly more impact resistant. But it’s still glass. If I’m out rock climbing and drop it while taking a picture, I believe the 4 is more likely to be significantly damaged. This will be the first iPhone I buy a case for.

To Be Determined

  • I was able to get 8 hours of backcountry GPS use out of the iPhone 3GS. That’s with the 3G, WiFi, and Bluetooth disabled and occasional use of the camera. For comparison, my buddy has an Android phone that lasts 3 hours while using GPS. I’ll be trying out the 4 soon with the recently updated Motion GPS, updated for background use in iOS 4. It would be great if I can get a weekend of use from a single charge.
Twitt