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 finally finished the main story in Mass Effect just a couple of days ago. I think I have about 15 hours of game time in…which is pretty short, but I didn’t do all that many of the side missions. The story was really excellent. There were quite a few surprises along the way that really made things move along nicely.

I think Final Fantasy 7 is still the best RPG I’ve played, but I would say Mass Effect is in my overall top 10 games list. The only thing that never really clicked for me was all of the equipment. Sure, you can buy fancy weapons and and all kinds of upgrades, but I barely did any of that and the game wasn’t that hard to beat. I suppose I could up the difficulty level and maybe all of the equipment would matter more.

In any event, it’s a fun game if you like more action oriented RPGs. Depending on your choices, it may feel a little too much like a FPS for some people, but the balance seemed just about right to me. Now I can start watching for Mass Effect 2 information…I’ve been trying to avoid it until I finished this just to make sure I didn’t see any of the ending before it was time.

I noticed Amazon had a $0.99 sale on a couple of new movies I had been wanting to see (Ghost Rider, 300, Shooter) so I decided to give it a try – after all, no shipping, no tax, means you can’t beat the price.  My setup is Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit and an Xbox 360 with wireless adapter (I stream the movies to the HDTV via the 360).  My initial impressions:

The Good

Install and movie purchase was quick and simple overall (however, it is a tiny bit less simple for 64-bit users…more on that later).  It was dead simple to stream to the 360 – if you already have the media center connection setup, then you’re ready to go.  The quality is on par with DVD – it’s certainly not HD, but I was watching on a 56″ HDTV and it looked as good as any DVD I have.

The Bad

When I first installed the software, I got a message saying something was wrong with my computer’s DRM configuration.  My only guess is that it has something to do with being on a 64-bit – but I really don’t know.  The Unbox software offers to help troubleshoot – so I did that and it found a patch to automatically install…after that, everything went fine.  The download speed is a bit slow – I rented 5 movies the first night (you can keep them for 30 days) at around 10pm.  By 8am or so the next morning, 4 of the 5 movies were downloaded.  The files are between 1.5GB – 3GB – so it’s certainly going to take a while to download them, but the speed could be just a tad better…but it’s not a huge issue – just realize that you’ll need to wait about an hour or so after you rent the movie before you can start playing it.  The biggest issue I have with Amazon’s Unbox service is the lack of 5.1 channel audio – the audio quality is decent, but it’s certainly not on the same level as a DVD and there is no true surround sound.

Conclusion

There’s no question that Unbox is a great deal if you find a movie you’d like to see for $0.99 – it’s the way to go at that price.  I’m not sure I’ll be using it for full price rentals though ($3.99) – for that price, I can get NetFlix or Blockbuster Online (and better sound quality).  If Amazon can drop the price to $1.99 for a one day rental, I’d be doing a lot more Unboxing.

So I went to see the new Fantastic Four movie – I hadn’t planned on seeing it since I wasn’t terribly thrilled with the first one.  I never read the comics, but I do know some of the FF storyline somehow (a cartoon maybe?  can’t remember…).  Anyway, a friend said he saw some reviews that said the movie was pretty good – so I decided to tag along.

The first hour or so wasn’t all that great.  It was almost entertaining, but not quite.  I think the little bit of the silver surfer story that I did know ruined this part for me – they spend so long trying to figure out what is going on that it just gets plain boring (not to mention the fact that it never really goes into detail about what IS going on…).  I would say this part of the movie was a little worse than Part 1.

The second half (more specifically, the last 20 or so minutes) was where the good stuff can be found.  I actually liked end quite a bit – much better than the first movie.  I won’t go into any details or anything, but it was entertaining.  I don’t know that it made up for the entire $8.50 I spent to see the movie, but it certainly helped.

If you’re a FF fan, then maybe you’ll love the movie.  If you’ve seen the other movies out right now, then might as well see this one too.  If you’re looking for the most entertainment bang for your buck, well, this probably isn’t the film for you.

I saw Shrek 3 this weekend – I wasn’t sure what it would be like…but lemme tell you, it’s good.  It was really funny – most of the humor was for the general audience, but there were the occasional parts that only the adults will get.  All in all, the storyline was decent enough – it’s more along the lines of the second movie instead of the first…basically expect more humor with a so-so story line.  There weren’t really any big surprises, but it was really entertaining.  I think my favorite part was when they meet the wizard (a close tie with some of Puss’ jokes).   If you liked Shrek 1 or 2, you owe it to yourself to see Shrek the Third.