I have one and I hate it just as much as I love it. I find that I can actually do what I want in a reasonable amount of time and minimal frustration due to the sheer speed and general responsiveness of the device. Yet I find myself generally less happy with it than I was with my iPhone 3G when I got it. To have come this far, it’s sad to see how far Apple has fallen with this device.

Now, there’s been plenty of coverage on the various issues, many of which I feel completely miss the mark (that’s what we get for enabling everyone to have global soap boxes I guess). Some get close, but over complicate the issues with speculation that bring about more debate than consensus. I only plan to focus on what’s wrong, hardware wise; I’ll write about iOS4 separately.

Comfort

Awkward ways to hold the phone to get a signal aside, this is by far the most uncomfortable iPhone yet. Sure, it looks beautiful, but as a smart phone comfort should be on the top of the list. The iPhone has reached a point where thinner is not better, it doesn’t help consumers at this point and it only makes manufacturing and design that much harder. No one was really crying for a thinner iPhone, because the larger curved back was already comfortable. This new thinner design only makes it harder and more painful to hold on to, having to bring your fingers farther in, bending them even more. Honestly it reminds me greatly of the original NES controllers, turning your hands into painful fixed claws.

To add another to the ‘curved was better’ category, the new sides are just downright painful. Especially when it comes to certain games, the sides actually become painful because the steel band is not the same thickness as the phone. This leaves a nice little crevice on either side of the band that your finger gets pushed into and it doesn’t take very long before this starts to hurt. I suppose I should just ‘avoid holding it that way’, but if we keep adding ways to hold it to the ‘avoid’ list, I’m not going to be able to hold this thing at all.

There’s no doubt that the iPhone 4 looks and feels very solid and precise. The iPhone 3G / 3GS look like toys with their plastic parts in comparison. However, even with their slightly weaker feeling due to the plastic, there’s a comfort and solidity from the full curved back that fits more naturally into my hand. Being larger and filling your hand gives you a greater sense of having a good solid grip on the phone. If I could take the 4′s guts and stick them in a 3G case, I’d do it without hesitation.

Glass

I’ve had my iPhone 3G since the day after launch (2 years), it’s never worn a case and I just toss it in my pocket with my wallet. The plastic back is scratched up like crazy, but I’ve never really cared about that. The glass, however, only has a few minor scratches on the top and bottom, none through the screen. My iPhone 4 has more scratches all over its front glass in the two weeks than I’ve had it (treated exactly the same) than my 3G does. Think about that for a second, more scratches in two weeks than in two years. For what gain, exactly?

My guess is that it has something to do with the fact that they’re laminating the screen and glass together. There’s no doubt even just the lack of a gap between the glass and screen looks significantly better, but at what cost? Is it going to matter if there’s a gap or not when the screen is so covered in scratches that I can’t hardly use the device? Only time will tell, but my spidey sense tells me the answer is ‘no’.

Now, to be fair, the scratches are basically invisible while the screen is on but I wonder how long that will last as they accumulate. I think there’s a definite case for false advertising here; Apple’s own web page says “… the glass is ultradurable and more scratch resistant than ever”. More scratch resistant?! I’d have been perfectly happy if it was as scratch resistant as my 3G, but as it’s been demonstrated all over the web (and in my personal experience), it’s actually significantly worse.

Antenna

I have a hard time expressing just how ridiculous and unfathomable the whole ordeal has been. Speculation abounds, but I lack such guesses because I am completely dumbfounded. Suffice to say, Apple has lost my respect over this issue alone, let alone everything else that’s wrong with this device. I, personally, experience the death grip and it’s no exaggeration and it’s not simply that the bars are wrong. Web page loading can be paused and continued at will repeatedly just by touching and releasing a specific spot on the phone.

There’s been a lot of commenting about this being an issue for left handed people. Here’s the thing, this issue affects data just as much as phone calls. This means that when holding it in my left hand to touch and interact with using my right hand, that wonderful spot of death is firmly cupped in my hand. It’s not specific to just holding it in a way that you’d make a phone call. Please stop saying Apple hates lefties, it’s obvious Apple hates us all equally.

The absurdity of all this is mind boggling, despite the fact that some signal attenuation may happen with any cell phone, including previous iPhones. The simplest solution, even with the current overall design, would be to move the ‘death point’ to the right side. You’re moving it from what’s always going to hit the palm, greatly increasing the chances that it’ll be bridged, to the side where only your fingers are present which would be far less likely to be bridged. During a right handed phone call (at least in my hands), I’m not cupping that gap, my thumb rises over and latches the right side of the phone.

Although Apple claims that there are no real issues beyond what affects a normal cell phone and says that a lot of the confusion stems from a bug in the software, I’m calling bullshit. For me, it doesn’t just degrade the signal, it removes it completely. Data transfers stop dead in their tracks, even simple webpages won’t continue loading. I wish I had a 3GS or something to record it, but I’ve paused web page loads multiple times in the same load just by pressing the ‘death point’. To be fair, I have seen some cases where I had to use more than finger to interrupt it, giving credence to the idea that it is actually just extreme attenuation.

However, other cell phones don’t put the antenna in the best possible place to be blocked/shorted/whatever is going on. They don’t take the most comfortable way to hold the phone and tell you not to just “avoid holding it that way” or to buy a case (for which they sell an insanely overpriced piece of plastic). Besides the cases meant to clip to a belt, who actually bought a case for their cell phone pre-smart phone? Nearly no one, so why is this different?

The response has varied wildly, anywhere from “calm down, buy a case and enjoy your iPhone” all the way to lawsuits. The expectation of us to buy a case just to be able to hold our phone in a comfortable manner and still have it work is just absurd, given what we’re already paying for it. What’s worse has been Apple’s-and Steve Jobs’, if email postings are to be believed-response to the whole ordeal. If this was such a nonissue that was present in old phones, there wouldn’t be a such a sudden and huge outcry over it, so downplaying and dismissing the issue is just an insult to Apple’s customers.

Apple should at least acknowledge that the design of the iPhone 4 does, in fact, make it easier to significantly drop a signal just by holding it. They really should be handing out free bumpers to appease customers, as they’re certainly not worth $29, and even more so would be worth the hit to help curb the large amount of negative press they’re getting.

The Bad

In a time where Android is starting to come under fire, this should of been the perfect time to surge ahead in positive mindshare. Instead, they’ve made several wrong turns with a phone that iPhone 3G customers have been waiting for every since they saw how fast the 3GS was. Now these customers are stuck, sure they could return their phones, but after seeing the beautiful display and just how fast it is, it’s unlikely they’ll do anything of the sort. On top of this, they’ve dismissed and insulted customers without so much as an olive branch.

I’ve always had a hate-love relationship with Apple, but this whole ordeal has left me bitter and hateful of Apple. The iPhone 4 now has, at least among the tech-informed (you know, the guys who recommend devices to the non-tech informed), a negative mindshare. It’s full of problems, and the Android users are sitting back and laughing with their relatively minor issues in comparison.

I will likely end up with a case to protect the antenna and glass, and hopefully round out the back some for more comfort. The fact that I now actually feel that I have to buy a case is, in my opinion, a complete failure on Apple’s part. It’s fragile and uncomfortable, a terrible combination if you want to keep something intact and not piss off your customers.