iPhone 4.0

Yes, I bought another iPhone. No, I did not stand in line for it. I preordered from the Best Buy in Silverdale, I walked in, I bought it, and then I walked out. Easy peasy. Advantage of living in a small town I suppose.

I'm following some people on twitter that said they stood in line for 4 hours...those people are nutso. I'd have given up, heh.

I've been asked why I bought an iPhone. After all, I'm a monumental geek. I believe open source leads to increased innovation, better security, and more functionality. Even though they are inherently more stable, I dislike closed proprietary systems. I don't like Apple's implementation of the App store. Specifically, I do not like the fact that they reject apps solely because they duplicate the functionality of the preinstalled apps.

If an app developer can build me a better mail or calendar app…they should be able to do so. I'll pay for it. A closed rejection system that has no 3rd party oversight is Apple trying to go all Big Brother on me, and I don't care for it.

I also disagree with Apple's stance on flash. Will it ruin battery life, crash unexpectedly, and open up my iphone to security holes? Maybe. But give me the option! Warn me if you must, but let me decide! Give me a choice. Maybe I don't care so much about battery life. You have given me a platform…let me use the platform to do what >I< want to do, not what you want to let me do.

Anyway, if you look at all of that, you'd think I'm hopping on the Android express. After all, it is the literal fix for all that is wrong with the iphone.

But…

Even with all it's problems, the iPhone does some things so amazingly well, that for me to move to another platform, somebody will have to do something AMAZING.

The first thing is battery life. The new iPhone blows the competition out of the water. It isn't even close. Even discounting the reports on the internet of amazing longevity, in the limited test I did this morning…it is impressive. A full 1.5 hour commute on my old 3GS takes about half my battery life. If I didn't plug it in while I was at work, it would be near empty when I got home (after the 1.5 hour leg on the other end). When I got in this morning…my battery life was down to just 85%…and I was watching video the WHOLE way in this morning. Amazing.

The second is apps. I am a heavy user of apps. There is literally an app for everything and I use them all. I spend 3+ hours commuting every single day, and during my commute, my iphone is my primary entertainment device. I play games, watch movies, listen to podcasts, surf the web, listen to music, goof around with doodling in mobile sketchbook, mess with guitar riffs in 'iShred', and if I'm feeling especially productive, I can even vpn into work and work through an ssh terminal or even a full remote desktop.

Does Android have an app for all that? Maybe…but all those things already exist on the iPhone and they are incredibly easy and simple…I don't have to work at it to make it work.

The point I guess is that I'm sticking with the iPhone for one simple reason: It works. It does everything I need it to, the interface is extremely good, and it finally can stream pandora while I'm playing games. Now I just need the iShred authors to update their software so that it works in ios4. Then I'll be set. :)