Adam's Interweb

The main reasons I upgraded from my 3GS to iPhone 4:

• Retina display
• Better battery life
• Better camera

Retina

The display is stunning – it is crystal clear and the colors are beautiful. Most apps simply become more crisp (assuming they don’t use a lot of low-res images). I don’t think you’ll see a ton of difference in the way you use apps due to the display, but you’ll enjoy the experience much more and it’ll feel less like a computer screen. This is one of those things where the old technology got the job done just fine, but man, after using this display for a few days now, I can’t wait to see it come to iPad and to traditional computer monitors. Once you get used to retina, all other displays start looking really blurry.

Battery Life

It’s excellent. It still isn’t going to last nearly as long as the iPad, but it seems to last significantly longer than my 3GS did while performing the same tasks.

Camera

For still photography, the camera seems to be improved, but it’s significantly better at low light photography. This is partly due to the new sensor technology, but it’s also due to the inclusion of a small LED flash. Don’t get me wrong, the low light photos are terrible compared to a DSLR or even a mid-range Point & Shoot…but it’s a huge step up from the camera in the 3GS that was barely usable in lower light conditions. Daylight photos (particularly macro type shots) range from good to excellent. If you want proof, check out this shot by a friend of mine. I’d say that under optimal conditions, the iPhone 4′s still camera is very competitive with mid-range Point & Shoot cameras. As for video, it’s 720p in size, but don’t expect anything close to Bluray quality. I put a couple of videos on my Vimeo account…these are “worst case” shots – indoors with low light shooting a dark subject with some fast movement. Quality wise, the video function alone is right there with my Creative Vado…there is absolutely no reason to use a Vado, Flip, etc. if you have an iPhone 4. In fact, when you add on the software (iMovie or otherwise), the iPhone 4 blows those devices out of the water.

Overall Feel

Compared to my 3GS, the iPhone 4 feels better & worse. I love the new design – it’s more sleek and feels even more solid. The downside is I feel more paranoid that I’m going to drop it. With the 3GS, you could drop it and have a pretty good chance of only minor scratches or maybe a small crack in the plastic back. With the iPhone 4, you’re either going to damage the glass on the front or back (and the camera is integrated into that back glass as well) or you’re going to bang up the antennas (since they form the metal band around the outside). In theory, the glass is super strong and not easy to break, but something about it just feels a little more fragile. Speed wise, everything feels fast. If you’ve used an iPad, it’s pretty much the same. I really don’t notice a ton of speed increase over my 3GS for day to day activities – I do know it’s much more powerful though, so I’m sure future apps will widen this gap.

FaceTime

FaceTime is the video calling feature built-in to each iPhone 4. I tried it out with a friend from Twitter and it’s certainly a nifty feature. It works as easily as Apple advertises…call someone, touch a button, and boom – video call. The big gotcha (for now) is that both parties must have iPhone 4s AND be on a WiFi network. I’m not sure I’ll be using this feature all that much, but I also prefer e-mail/twitter/IM to phone calls anyway. I can see it being pretty popular for some people and I do see a few use cases for myself.

iBooks

iBooks is an app I use a ton on my iPad. I was hoping the retina display would make it more readable to me on the iPhone 4. Text & images looks absolutely fantastic – but at the end of the day, I just can’t read on such a tiny screen. It’s not that the font is too small – I can see it fine – I just can’t fit enough content on the screen for my tastes. I read mostly technical (or at least non-fiction books) though, so books with less structured content may be a bit better. Imagine reading the tiny bibles you used to find in hotels – that’s what it’s like reading on the iPhone 4…super crisp text, but a little bitty reading surface. I do like having the ability to look up something in iBooks in an emergency though – so I’ll keep it installed just in case.

Multitasking

A lot of people have been anxiously awaiting multitasking on iPhone. I’m not one of them. I would like a few apps to be able to update in the background (Twitter for example) and I’d like to have a live IM client, but that’s about it. I don’t use Skype or Pandora on the phone, but if I did, I’d be happy. For me, this is a nice feature, but the only real benefit I get is that it’s slightly faster to switch between applications. Maybe I’ll be wow’d with what people are able to do with this in the future, but for now, I just don’t see much benefit for the tasks I do today…but I was never the target of this feature in the first place.

Reception

You’ve probably heard about the reception issues with iPhone 4. Steve Jobs said they don’t exist, but if they did, it’s because you’re holding it the wrong way. Apple corporate said they exist on all phones and you should buy a case. Well, they definitely do exist and I’m holding my phone the same way I’ve held every Apple iPhone. I’m going to end up buying a case I’m sure, but I’m really disappointed in Apple over this one. If you hold the phone in your left hand, you’ll connect two of the antennas with your finger or palm. By doing this, your 5 bars of full signal will drop to “No Service” within 30 seconds or so unless you happen to be *very* close to a cell tower. At home, I can do this easily every time I try. In West Knoxville, I had a harder time getting the signal to drop…so it seems to be partially dependent on your proximity to cell towers. I have yet to have a call drop due to this, but I have had SMS messages and data downloads stop/fail due to it…so it isn’t just a display issue – it really is losing the signal. Apple says some type of fix is on the way and if that’s the case, then maybe this won’t be a problem much longer. I expected I would get better reception than my 3GS due to the larger exposed antenna, but so far, my 3GS had a more stable signal. Call quality is as good or better on the iPhone 4 though. I haven’t tried making a call from a noisy area yet, but all of the calls I’ve made have sounded very clear on my end and no complaints from those that I’ve called.

I’ve had quite a few people ask about my recent AT&T U-verse install, so I thought a quick blog post was in order. Keep in mind, my install happened during the first week of the Knoxville, TN U-verse rollout – so I’m sure things will go faster (as far as the installation goes) as they do more and more installs in this area.

I chose to go with U-verse because I live in an older neighborhood in Knoxville and my high speed internet choices are fairly limited. I’ve had 3Mbps DSL from AT&T for the last 3 years and it’s been decent, but I really needed more upload speed. I’m a software developer so I usually have lots of large software updates I need to download quite often and I frequently have fairly large chunks of data I need to upload to a server on a regular basis (Dropbox, Subversion, etc.). I ended up going with AT&T U-verse since they offer a package with 18Mbps download and 2Mbps upload…this was my main consideration for choosing U-verse, not the VoIP service nor the TV service. I want to make it clear that I didn’t compare the TV and phone services to other providers…so if that is your main focus, this writeup may not be useful to you.

Speed Test – Before & After
All tests were performed with www.speedtest.net on a MacBook running Snow Leopard connected to my wireless LAN – this is my most common usage scenario, so it’s what I decided to test with.  Also, ignore the “distance” in these speed tests…all were performed in Knoxville at the same location.

Before U-verse - Speed Test - Morristown, TN

After U-verse - Speed Test - Morristown, TN

From this quick test, you can see my download rate is much higher, but my upload rate also got a massive improvement.  The ping time got cut in half as well – so it’s a win-win-win with the U-verse upgrade.  The thing is, the download rate isn’t anywhere near the max rate of 18Mbps, so I decided to try a speed test against the Atlanta, GA data center since I would assume they have more capacity than Morristown…

U-verse - Speed Test - Atlanta, GA

Nice huh?  That’s quite close to the max download rate and a very respectable upload speed…and the ping is lower still.  So the bottom line is U-verse blows regular DSL out of the water and it is generally better than cable or at least very comparable.  One of the things I don’t like about cable internet is they use different methods to boost your speeds for short periods of time.  So you may have a 12Mbps package and for 30 secs – 2 minutes, you may get that speed when starting a download, but if you’re downloading something large, you will usually notice your download speed dialing back pretty drastically…whereas I should (in theory) have these U-verse speeds throughout the whole download.  Realistically though, you’re going to be very unlikely to find a single server that can provide you with a download at these rates, so the only way you would be able to get this much data flowing would be to have quite a few downloads going on simultaneously.

The Installation

Now that the speed test is out of the way, you may want to know about the installation process.  When I signed up for the install, I was told the install takes between 4 to 6 hours depending on the services I wanted installed and the specifics of my house/neighborhood.  The U-verse install requires two different groups – one is an external group that hooks up your new equipment on the outside of your house and the other group does everything inside the house.  In my case, I heard from both groups at 9am – both called to confirm the appointment and to let me know they were on the way.  The external guy got here around 9:30am and he started checking the lines outside my house.  The internal guys got here around 9:45am and I gave them a quick tour of the places I wanted U-verse.  The external guy worked until 11 or a little after getting everything prepped and getting some electronics added on to my house that connect back up to the utility pole.  While he was doing that, the internal guys explored the attic and crawlspace to determine the best way to run my new wires.

I have an older house and even though I did have coax cables in most of the rooms, the cables were always on the opposite wall from my TVs (I have not had cable for over 3 years…so placement in relation to the cables wasn’t exactly important prior to today).  After talking to the U-verse guys about this, they agreed they should go ahead and run new wires to all of my TVs…but here’s the awesome part: they ran Cat 5e cables to all my rooms *for free* instead of coax!  That was a HUGE win for me…why?  Because now I can add a network switch in any room with one of the new network jacks and I’ve got a way to hardwire in my other goodies…specifically, my Xbox 360 and my Blu-ray players.  If you already had coax cable that was close to your TVs, I don’t think they would run anything for you since they prefer to use existing wiring.  Even if they do run new stuff for your install, *you* must ask for Cat 5e instead of coax if that is what you want.  They can install either one usually unless there are specific environmental conditions at your location – in which case they may not give you a choice.  Anyway, it took them maybe an hour to hour and a half to run the network drops (I had four sets total in my case…all from the crawlspace).

By this time, the outside stuff was done and tested.  Both teams must test the line once it’s ready to go – until that point, you don’t really know whether you can actually get U-verse service or not.  If you can’t, I don’t know what happens…in my case, both teams agreed that I had an excellent signal here so we could proceed with installation of the Residential Gateway (the “RG”).  So, they finished up all of the network jacks (adding faceplates, etc.) and then connected up the RG and the backup battery (a small Belkin UPS…keeps the net and VoIP up for 4 hours if the power goes out).  The RG essentially *IS* the U-verse service…it controls everything.  It has a router (wired and wireless…b/g only), the VoIP system, and the TV connections.  So if this box isn’t happy, nothing is going to work.  It’s important to note that this RG box needs a true, three prong grounded electrical outlet…I have a 50 year old home, but luckily a handful of my outlets were updated to be grounded just before I bought this house.  If you’re thinking about U-verse and you have an older house, make sure you have one of these outlets or you won’t be able to install…you can’t use an adapter for this part, you *must* have a real grounded outlet near the RG.

As luck would have it, my RG was not happy.  No matter what they did, it just wouldn’t connect to the network.  The techs tried everything they could think of, but after about 2 hours of troubleshooting it, they decided it we should try another RG.  At this point, the installation was crossing the 7 hour mark (the guys didn’t even take a lunch break…).  This time, the RG connected properly.  Even when the RG works, the initial setup still takes about 15 minutes while it configures itself.  Once that was done, I had to connect to the RG from my MacBook and finish a few last steps on the AT&T website.  Once all of that was out of the way, the techs connected up all of my TV boxes and let them sync.  All of them had to perform an automatic update that took another 10-15 minutes to complete.  Finally, we did a quick test of my phone system, finished porting my number to the new system, and then they gave me a quick tour of the U-verse software on the DVR.  It was 6:30pm and the installation was completed.

So, was it worth it?

I’ve had the service for less than a day as I write this, but I can say that this was 110% worth it for my purposes.  Heck, just getting these great upload and download rates makes it worth it for me, but getting my house wired with a wired gigabit network was an unbelievable bonus.  Will I watch all 450+ TV channels?  No, I’ll probably watch 20 or less any given week.  If you like TV though, this package has as much as any of them.  I don’t use the landline phone much, so I’m not sure how useful the VoIP upgrade will be…call quality sounds much better (I had some noise prior to this upgrade), but I wanted to keep my Knoxville number, so I kept the phone service for the moment.  I think a typical install in a newer home that already had existing coax (or ethernet) cable in all the right places would be much, much shorter than my install…maybe 2-4 hours.  So if you’re thinking about getting U-verse, don’t let the length of my install deter you – it’s very unlikely it’ll take longer than 6 hours max.  All of the guys I dealt with during the install were a pleasure to work with – other than the technical issues with the bad RG hardware, everything went as smoothly as one would want.  The real question is the long term support – will AT&T keep up the great customer service I experienced or will they drop the ball now that I’m committed to U-verse?  Only time will tell, but I can certainly recommend U-verse at this point.

UPDATE (10/30/2009): It’s been a couple of days now and I’m still very happy with the service.  The only “issue” I’ve found is that I misunderstood the stream limit with U-verse as far as TV programming.  I thought all boxes would be able to watch any channel (HD or SD) and the DVR box could do 4 channels (all recording or watching 1 and recording 3).  What I didn’t realize was that your entire U-verse system can only support 4 channels simultaneously and of those 4, only 2 can be HD.  So if you have three boxes like I do, you can’t watch live HD content on all three boxes at the same time unless you’re watching the same show(s) on two or more of the boxes.  If you have lots of TVs in your house, you may hit this issue pretty quickly.  In my case, I hit the issue because three of the shows I like to watch come on at the same time on the same day of the week…when I tried to set the DVR to record all of them in HD, it told me I couldn’t.  I can drop one of the shows down to SD and it’s fine, but while the recording is going on, I won’t be able to watch any other channels in HD (it gives you a blue screen and tells you no more HD channels can be used until the recording has stopped).  For me, this isn’t a deal breaker, but I thought I should put a note on here since this limit wasn’t clear to me…I knew the limit of 4 streams on the DVR box, I just didn’t realize that was a limit on the whole U-verse install.

I’ve been using the mac for just right around 5 months now. In that time, I’ve found that there are a handful of applications I use very regularly, so I thought I would share in case any other switchers are looking for apps to check out. Here are my current top 5 (in no particular order):

• TextMate
• Things
• 1Password
• Delicious Library 2
• Quicksilver

Other Noteworthy Apps

• Adium
• VMWare Fusion
• NetNewsWire
• CyberDuck
• Transmission

Well, about three months ago, I applied for the Apple iPhone Developer Program so I could build a few apps for my iPhone.  Last Friday, I was finally approved.  I’m not sure why it took so long for Apple to open things up, but I’m glad they finally released the finished SDK and let everyone in.  I’m sure in the next couple of months, there will be some awesome applications out there.  I’ve been working most of the weekend on my first app, but I’ll talk more about that later.

I did notice that one of the top 10 apps (#9 currently) is “iBeer” – it uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to display “beer” on the iPhone’s screen that looks as if it were in a glass when you tip the iPhone up to your mouth.  I think it’s an interesting use of the hardware and all, but I can’t believe it’s a top 10 non-free app.  I mean, this thing costs $3 + tax…  Just amazing what people value these days (but congratz to the developer for coming up with that – paying off big time I’m sure). 

Yesterday, I posted about how I was giving up OS X after 3 months of use.  Well, after 24 hours of use, I remembered why I tried to switch to mac to start with…activation.  I’m one of those people that likes to reformat a machine when it’s getting too much crud – after all, as a software developer, I try out new things when they come out and that’s not really a good thing for the system if you want to keep it clean and fast.  The problem, is that I don’t really want to tie Vista to my MacBook since I may want to go back to OS X at some point…  I remembered I had my dual core Athlon 64 desktop w/ triple monitors just sitting in a closet, so found some desk space and fired it up.  It’s so much easier to get my .NET development on using my desktop.  I’m sure it’s just habit, but it just doesn’t feel right on the laptop (and I miss my third screen).

So, now my MacBook is transitioning back to OS X Leopard (looking forward to Snow Leopard though if they really do speed things up), but my main workhorse is my trusty old desktop.  I really hate not using Vista since I purchased it at retail, but XP just feels better (and Vista doesn’t like my desktop…but XP flies on it thanks to the ton o’ RAM and 10K RPM SATA drive).

I’m really surprised that I didn’t like having a dedicated Vista laptop, but it just didn’t feel right once everything was said and done.  With this new setup, things seem just right…old habits die hard.