Like just about everyone else that has an iPhone, I upgraded to iOS 4.0 yesterday. If you’re gadget nerd, you’re either completely sick of hearing about the iPhone 4 and iOS 4.0 or you can’t get enough, so where you stand on that should probably dictate if you continue to read or not. However, for anyone that cares or wants to continue reading, I decided I would post my impressions.
Upgrade process
The upgrade process wasn’t bad for me at all. The software downloaded quickly, in just a few minutes, and the installation took less than ten minutes. It was quite impressive actually, especially compared to some of the experiences I’ve read about. My fiancée’s update wasn’t going as quickly though, the download for her was going to take 3-4 hours so we canceled it and just updated on my computer with the software I already had downloaded. The only hiccup either of us found was that most of our contacts didn’t make it across, but a re-sync fixed it for me and hers just came back on their own after a few hours. The only other problem that I’m still having is with my email (Gmail via GoogleSync), but that hadn’t been working lately anyway so it hardly seems like iOS4′s fault. I hear Google is having issues with it on their end. We’ll see.
What’s not to like
Feature-wise, I’m going to be honest, I’m a bit underwhelmed. Before I get into what was included, the fact that Apple doesn’t have a quick reply for SMS and better notification handling at this point is ridiculous. I was disappointed that these weren’t included in the preview a few months back, but was hopeful that ol’ Steve would surprise us with them at the last keynote. It also would have been nice to get some widgets or useful information on the lock screen. All of this stuff can be fixed via jailbreak, but since I’m not running a jailbreak right now, I’ll have to deal. More on that later.
I like the idea behind the multitasking implementation Apple developed. I think putting battery life and actual performance as the first priority was the right thing to do. I know there are many days where my battery struggles to keep up with me. I can think of very few situations in which I would ever need a full-blown app running in the background. Allowing just some necessary threads is great, but unfortunately, Apple decided against including a thread for apps to keep themselves updated with the freshest contect. It would be great if there was an option that could be toggled on a per-app basis that would allow the app to continue fetching updates. This would be great for Twitter and Facebook apps.
Having to wait for developers to integrate multitasking sucks, but it was to be expected and even though only a few apps have been updated so far, more should be on the way. My real issue though is the fast-app switching. It’s insanely convenient to be able to switch quickly between two or three apps without going back to the home screen, but the problem I’m finding is that the tray fills up with apps too quickly. I end up with a dozen or two app icons down there and it feels like the whole purpose is lost at that point. I never realized how many apps I go in and out of regularly, but it’s a lot.
So far, battery life has been much worse. To be fair, I’ve been using my phone pretty heavily today, but even just my normal morning web browsing in the car (while the fiancée was driving, of course) used up about 40% more battery life than usual. And to be even more fair, I didn’t do a clean restore when I updated as is regularly suggested when you’ve jailbroken–it’s a known issue that battery life can suffer horribly when you update/restore a jailbroken iPhone if you don’t start fresh. However, my fiancée is also seeing decreased battery life and she was previously not jailbroken.
On top of the battery life woes, I’m also noticing occasional sluggishness in apps and in system animations like sliding the app icons into the home screen.
What’s to like
The likes are mostly smaller things, but I do like the fast-app switching and multitasking for the most part, outside of the issues above, at least. Being able to quickly switch between apps without hitting the home screen is a really big improvement and speeds things up a ton. The overall implementation is really great…if only I didn’t end up with over 30 apps in the app switcher tray guy (what is this thing called?) so quickly.
Spellcheck, searching in the messages app, unified inbox, and message threading for email are all great and very welcome additions. So glad that this stuff finally made it.
The camera app is much, much quicker now. It feels ultra snappy and snapping and saving a shot seems to take less than half as long as it did previously. This didn’t seem to make it to third-party camera apps by default, but as far as the stock app goes, it’s much better now. Hopefully, devs will be able to speed up their apps like this as well. Being able to tap to focus for video recording is also pretty sweet and allows a bit of an artistic touch to video recording. I think this will yield even better results on the iPhone 4. And the 5x zoom is another nicety. I’m generally very anti digital zoom since you’re doing nothing more than cropping, but on a phone, it’s a nice feature when you just want to take a quick picture and send it along to someone. It cuts out the middle-app to crop it down.
I’m also really liking the audio control widget in the tray. This is really useful and the fact that it will control whichever app is being used to play audio is even better. I tried it out with Pandora (while it was backgrounded!) and it was fantastic. The rotation lock icon to the left of these controls is also a nice addition and removes one reason to jailbreak for me.
And folders are pretty sweet. The implementation is significantly better than Categories (jailbreak only). It’s smooth and consistent and adds a lot of organization to all your apps. I’m a fan and I don’t find it that annoying to be limited to 12 apps, though I have a couple games and utilities folders now.
Missing jailbreak though
I’m missing my jailbreak though. During the course of typing this, the Dev-Team released a jailbreak that is compatible with the early 3GSes of the world, but I’m not sure that I will be messing around with it. I’m planning on picking up an iPhone 4 on Thursday (I have a reservation) which I’m sure will not be jailbreakable for quite some time…if ever. So I might as well just get used to it now.
What I’m missing the most are SBSettings and BiteSMS. Both of these offer features that I can’t believe Apple hasn’t included yet, quick access to settings like WiFi and quick reply for SMS that works from anywhere in the system. I keep catching myself trying to fire up the BiteSMS quick compose.
I’m also missing GriP which is notification solution that I just recently started using. It’s similar to Growl on a Mac, if you’ve ever used that, or other solutions on Windows and Linux. It’s not perfect, but it gets the job done.
Other than that, I think I can easily live without anything else I’ve installed via jailbreak. I’ll miss having a flashlight app that’s actually useful, the app store versions don’t have access to make the screen as bright, but maybe the LED flash on the iPhone 4 will replace that need. I’ll also miss the status bar notification icons for email and SMS, but that’s not a big deal.
As for Backgrounder and ProSwitcher, I don’t think I’ll be missing those after a few weeks go by and most of the apps I use are updated.
Conclusion
There are definitely a lot of good things going on here, but there are some complaints too. Apple has come really far, but still has some major improvements to make in some relatively basic areas.
I made a reservation for an iPhone 4 at my local Apple store, but unfortunately, my line isn’t up for an upgrade so it’s going to cost $400 if I actually decide to show up and buy it. I was originally sold on the “retina display” and the front camera, but what I was most excited about was beefed up rear camera and extended battery life. I wasn’t sure if those would be worth it at $400, but it seems the reviews from the heavyweights are in and it supposedly, the iPhone 4 puts the iPhone back at the top of phones on the market right now. Engagdet did a very in-depth review and gives the camera and battery life high marks. For the amount of photos I take with my phone, I think that’s a pretty big selling point, especially the considering the low light improvements. If I can leave the point and shoot at home even more and forget about that FlipHD purchase I was planning on making, I’ll be happy.
Alright, that’s about it. Maybe I’ll post an iPhone 4 review…or anything else soon. Next week, I’ll have a review for Insubordination Fest this weekend.
