IPhone 4

http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/4

by pclark • 16 years ago

106 147 16 years ago

daringfireball.net

solutionyogi• 16 years ago

I am sure he wouldn't have downplayed the 'signal' issue if it was an issue with an Android phone.

ugh5• 16 years ago

Downplayed? In what respect?

Chump2• 16 years ago

He tries to emphasize that it happens in only "marginal strength areas" (see also this other post: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/29/gaywood-signal-i... ) but iPhone 4s displaying 'full bars' have been shown to suffer the problem (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNmXrVNeGzs )

ubernostrum2• 16 years ago

I am sure he wouldn't have downplayed the 'signal' issue if it was an issue with an Android phone.

Considering that similar issues were reported with the Nexus One, why don't you go find the 10,000-word "LOL DROID SUXORS" rant that Gruber -- as just another Apple fanboy, aiming to make the competition look bad whenever possible -- undoubtedly wrote about it? Then you can link it here and use it as justification for your post.

awa• 16 years ago

Is it only me who finds the flat sides and glass back "aesthetically" unpleasing... The 3GS looks a tad better to me than the 4 (ofcourse they aren't deal breakers, but wanted to know since Gruber seem to like them)

ugh5• 16 years ago

Have you seen one in person? I think the new iPhone doesn’t look so good in photos (at least not Apple’s) but it looks quite great in person. No contest with the old plastic thing.

treblig3• 16 years ago

Completely agreed. The plastic felt cheap. This feels like a Rolex.

mrshoe• 16 years ago

I think the iPhone 4 gives the original iPhone a serious run for its money in the industrial design department. The 3G and 3Gs weren't even close, in my opinion. A rounded blob of plastic isn't very exciting.

apu• 16 years ago

Except this is exactly what was said about the iPhone when it came out -- that it was amazingly designed.

If good design is supposed to be timeless, how can once-beautiful pieces of design now be considered as "rounded blob[s] of plastic" that "isn't very exciting"?

This is the kind of fanboyism that really turns off a lot of us.

Thought experiment: if Apple came out with a new phone with the exact design of some previously maligned older phone, I'd be willing to bet that most Apple fans would immediately claim that this "new" design is amazing and perfect and all the other superlatives that are pitched about...

axod2• 16 years ago

I agree, the 4 looks like a step back. Maybe to a 70s type of design. Looks cludgy to me.

elbrodeur4• 16 years ago

I have to disagree. Nothing about the design harkens back to the 70's, except for maybe the earliest increases in adoption of minimalism. Maybe.

If you line this up next to their current line of products it fits right in.

watmough• 16 years ago

It's taken me a few days to 'get used' to the 4.

I love the thing, it has a Bang and Olufsen vibe to it.

ergo984• 16 years ago

Apple defines beauty. Accept that as the baseline and you'll realize how exactly what was maligned before is now the new benchmark.

antidaily2• 16 years ago

The new volume buttons, silence toggle, and power button all have a better feel than ever before.

No way. The buttons feel cheap compared to the 3GS. The silence toggle is a piece of shit. And I preferred the volume up/down as one button.

czhiddy• 16 years ago

I've only played with them at the Apple Store, but the iPhone4 silence switch seemed a lot better than the ones on my original 2G and current 3GS. My 2G switch was so flimsy that it would toggle on and off in my pocket from idle friction, while the 3GS one was stiff to the point where I needed both hands to reliably move it.

antidaily2• 16 years ago

The new one is thin and seems to almost stick at times.

maxjg• 16 years ago

I do like the feel and design of the 3G model better (much easier to tell if it's silenced in your pocket), but on multiple occasions, the switch on my 3GS has switched from silenced to not. The new one seems a lot less prone to that.

russell_h• 16 years ago

I'm not sure about the 3G(S) but the iPhone 2G switch actually had a tendency to break a lot. The problem was prevalent enough that people came up with software solutions to override it: http://www.iclarified.com/entry/comments.php?enid=1468#comme...

ary2• 16 years ago

Say what you will about the volume and lock buttons, but the new silence toggle is great. About once a day I would accidentally switch my phone from ring to silent (or vice versa) with my 3GS.

ZeroGravitas3• 16 years ago

Does anyone else notice this pattern and find it strange:

Feature X on my new Apple product is great. It's much better than the flawed version on my earlier Apple device.

The retina screen and camera are two big areas where Apple might have previously been considered behind the curve, yet they get strongly praised for being better than their earlier efforts rather than benchmarked against current rivals.

Compare the gasps of delight of someone comparing a Retina display against years old iPhones, compared with the "meh, looks about the same" response when compared with a Super-AMOLED screen from Samsung.

KirinDave2• 16 years ago

The silence toggle on both the 3G and the 3GS gave out on me. It was the most inferior part of that model.

I know a lot of people who have problems with super-flickering vibrate mode.

brown9-2• 16 years ago

And this is exactly the crux of my problem with reviews like this:

maybe how a button feels to an individual is a bit subjective?

zygen• 16 years ago

All reviews are subjective. If the person doesn't have the same tastes as you, then don't take their opinion.

Arron• 16 years ago

Not sure why ppl continue reading his completely biased crap.

elbrodeur4• 16 years ago

It's a positive, thorough review by someone who develops on the Apple platform. Do you comment on Silverlight developers glowing posts as well? Or do you just dislike it when Apple developers do it?

rglullis3• 16 years ago

What has Gruber developed for Apple, exactly? His "projects" page shows nothing Apple-related: http://daringfireball.net/projects/

btmorex• 16 years ago

>The overall build quality seems impossibly good. The iPhone 4 is beautiful to behold and feels like a valuable artifact. It’s like a love letter to Dieter Rams.

Do other people actually like reading stuff like this? I mean, regardless of what you think of the iphone 4, that level of praise almost makes me feel bad for him. It's like romantic love for an object.

hristov2• 16 years ago

I don't feel bad for him because I am sure he is getting paid.

treblig3• 16 years ago

Paid? By Apple?

Or just his feed sponsorships and Deck ads?

dieterrams2• 16 years ago

I like reading it very much.

danudey3• 16 years ago

I like reading it because it's interesting. I can read a hundred reviews where the author says 'The build quality is good and the phone feels solid in your hand.' Those reviews are typically as exciting, fresh, and captivating to read as a first-generation Blackberry is to behold.

It might be a little over the top sometimes, but that's part of what I like about him.

Hari_Seldon2• 16 years ago

So do I, it's hard to find good, impassioned writing on the web.

wallflower• 16 years ago

> It’s like a love letter to Dieter Rams.

In the design documentary, Objectified, by Gary Hustwit, Dieter Rams is asked if there is any company that really gets design today. He answers after a moment's pause: "Apple".

I believe Apple is integrating design down to lower levels than anyone has done before. Some companies talk about corporate DNA but Apple is going to Jurassic Park levels.

It feels natural. Even though the object has been artificially and painstakingly engineered with love.

Excerpt from "Objectified": Dieter Rams

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBF1rOxWsxg

Excerpt from "Objectified": Jonathan Ive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fe800C2CU

http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/

cj• 16 years ago

I skimmed through the article looking for anything negative. Acknowledging its flaws is more productive than studying its perfection.

KirinDave2• 16 years ago

There is plenty of discussion of the signal issue, the proximity sensor issue, and the potential fragility. It doesn't gloss over them or overplay them.

Is that sufficient? This seems at least as balanced and credible as the Ars Technical review.

jacobolus4• 16 years ago

It seems likely to me that these won’t be obvious until people have had more time to use the device. Which flaws should he have acknowledged?

pohl4• 16 years ago

Not only did he find and acknowledge a flaw, but he filed an issue on it.

neonfunk• 16 years ago

It's not so much "love" as it is obsession; and obsessive people tend to be at least colorful, if not interesting, just given how much time they're willing to devote to a subject seemingly so minute. This article is the 1st I've read since the initial batch of reviews that I didn't stop reading after the 1st paragraph.

blasdel5• 16 years ago

Except that Gruber is anything but colorful -- his whole aesthetic is dour gray

csmeder• 16 years ago

Thats like asking do great mathematicians enjoy the description of a great proof.

"The overall quality seems impossibly good. The proof is beautiful to behold and there is a timeless nature to it. It’s like a love letter to Pierre-Simon Laplace."

Sure its a little corny, but F#ck, for the majority of even moderately wealthy designers the iPhone 4 is probably the most well designed item they have ever touched. Yes, the average person could care less of the design quality, but for those who do care its a big deal.

jsz03• 16 years ago

What's wrong with that? People love cars, architecture, sculpture, jewelry, watches, clothes, and all sorts of other objects. There's also nothing wrong with a purely utilitarian view of the world either. I don't see any good reason to judge either way.

narrator• 16 years ago

I think this article is a great demonstration of Poe's Law.

generalk2• 16 years ago

It doesn't make me feel bad for him, but it doesn't make him sound like an objective source of information. Which is 100% okay.

Writers don't have to be objective, so long as they point out their biases clearly. Gruber does. More and more I don't want to read blatantly pro-Apple stuff, but that doesn't mean Gruber's wrong to write it.

theBobMcCormick• 16 years ago

I feel that way a lot when reading Gruber. He has the same kind of unwavering fawning praise for Apple that Rush Limbaugh has for the Republican party.

jacobolus4• 16 years ago

Rush Limbaugh constantly criticizes the Republican party from the batshit crazy right.

Gruber’s frequent criticisms of Apple are ones I think most people on this board would agree with (probably including you).

Your comparison is so absurd as to be trivially dismissible, and implies that either you’re irrationally angry/resentful about something, or trolling.

Tichy• 16 years ago

The more money you spend on something, the more you need to hear that you did the right thing. At school in a psychology course I learned that there is advertising created for people who already bought the stuff (like an expensive car), to prevent them from worrying.

Still, the level of reassurance Apple fans need is a bit disturbing. If it is so great, why not just shut up about it and enjoy it?

kenjackson• 16 years ago

I haven't read the story yet... but I'm going to guess: he likes it!

Garbage• 16 years ago

No prize for guessing that. Everybody "guessed" it correctly. :P

jherdman• 16 years ago

  "... but I’ve had fun trying out FaceTime with a few iPhone 4-enabled friends"

This sentence is absolutely delicious to my mind, specifically the use of the word "enabled". It's as if to own a device was to somehow be an upgrade for one's person.

Is this how we've really all come to think of devices now? Are they extensions of our bodies? A whole raft of questions has drifted to the shores of my mind.

dieterrams2• 16 years ago

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000R3PJ74/

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/clark/clark_index.html

saint-loup• 16 years ago

David Chalmers, in his preface of Clark's Supersizing the Mind :

"A month ago, I bought an iPhone. The iPhone has already taken over some of the central functions of my brain. It has replaced part of my memory, storing phone numbers and addresses that I once would have taxed my brain with. It harbors my desires: I call up a memo with the names of my favorite dishes when I need to order at a local restaurant. I use it to calculate, when I need to figure out bills and tips. It is a tre- mendous resource in an argument, with Google ever present to help settle disputes. I make plans with it, using its calendar to help deter- mine what I can and can’t do in the coming months. I even daydream on the iPhone, idly calling up words and images when my concentra- tion slips. Friends joke that I should get the iPhone implanted into my brain. But if Andy Clark is right, all this would do is speed up the processing and free up my hands. The iPhone is part of my mind already."

stratospark• 16 years ago

Every tool is an extension of the human mind. Play an instrument, drive a car, swing a bat... Sure you're using your fingers, legs, and arms, but once your mind adapts, you're thinking and reacting more directly about the new inputs and outputs the tool gives you. There are some neurological studies on musicians and their brain maps that demonstrate this.

Think of other types of tools like hearing aids and artificial limbs. Over time, the brain adapts to use them much like the real thing. Some tools are just "upgrades" far removed from what the human body is naturally capable of.

The tools we use definitely shape the way we think.

Marshall McLuhan: "We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us."

terrble• 16 years ago

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.htm...

mzl• 16 years ago

Scott Adams has a few fun ideas on how we should move forward with our new exobrains: http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/dilbert_pocket/

rglullis3• 16 years ago

That Apple pays so much attention to the details as to pick a different version of Helvetica for different classes of displays is emblematic of what makes the iPhone the iPhone — software and hardware that are designed in tandem as parts of a single whole.

Really? On the next paragraph...

There is, however, one problem with Helvetica Neue in iOS 4.0: it doesn’t include italics.(...)I can only assume this is an oversight on Apple’s part.

Yes, it is a small thing. I really don't care whether the phone comes with the Heuvetica Neue bold, or not. But I can't stop thinking about how Apple's marketing (or Gruber's writing) is eerily similar to hypnosis: you provide a baseless assertion that "sort of" makes sense intertwined with contradictions, making the target's brain take everything as valid.

elbrodeur4• 16 years ago

As a designer, Helvetica Neue (even without italics) is a huge step in the right aesthetic direction. His original point was not so much about the font, but about the platform. He lays the groundwork, showing that the platform was higher resolution and therefore it made more sense for a font that displayed better at higher resolutions to be used.

I think it's a valid point and a great critique -- how is it contradictory to praise what is praiseworthy and point out what is wrong?

axod2• 16 years ago

Surely it's like saying "Ford pay so much detail to every part of their cars, it's amazing the level of care put into each and every model"

and later saying "Of course Ford did forget to include wheels on this particular model"

chc4• 16 years ago

The contradiction is in praising them for their attention to detail in how that made a feature and then pointing out a problem with the very same feature that can best be described as a lack of attention to detail.

albemuth• 16 years ago

If a competitor had made a mistake like that he likely would have crucified them

treblig3• 16 years ago

I'm a little upset that this is called "IPhone 4". It is part of the story, in fact, a very telling part of his narrative that he merely titled it "4".

blehn4• 16 years ago

Apple is so good at making buttons, it’s almost enough to make one wish they made button-laden devices.

Oh come on...Pro mouse, Mighty Mouse, Magic Mouse, current and previous gen macbook trackpad buttons, the previous gen desktop keyboards, iPod click-wheels, Apple Remote...these are some of the worst buttons I've used. Apple has made some decent buttons (I think the current and previous gen MBP keyboards are well made), but they're way too inconsistent to make a claim like that.

spicyj• 16 years ago

What's wrong with the current trackpad?

blehn4• 16 years ago

- incredibly noisy

- requires too much force to depress

- the travel distance is too far

- the hinged design means that the necessary pressure varies at different locations

I've noticed there is a bit of variation between machines, but most seem to exhibit these behaviors in my experience

squidsoup• 16 years ago

I'd agree with your assessment of the past Apple mouse lineup (undeniably shocking), but the Magic Mouse gets a lot of things right. I find myself wishing I had a multitouch surface at my work PC instead of the somewhat clunky but serviceable MS mouse.

generalk2• 16 years ago

For me, the Magic Mouse gets one thing horribly wrong: ergonomics. I use a computer at least eight hours of the working day, and potentially much more than that. If I can't be comfortable using a device, it doesn't matter how awesome it is, I can't use it.

cmelbye• 16 years ago

The current Macbook Pro trackpad button is a dream to use, they've found the perfect amount of pressure required to click in my opinion.

blehn4• 16 years ago

It's definitely a subjective thing, but I think it just sucks. I set my machine to "tap-to-click" within a few minutes.

brianwillis• 16 years ago

Is is truly surprising how the company that took the mouse mainstream now can't make one that's simultaneously aesthetically pleasing and a joy to use.

thwarted2• 16 years ago

I can't use the Magic Mouse because it doesn't fit my human-sized man-hand: it has no palm support. And this strikes me as odd because how it looks should be extremely secondary: the only way to effectively use a mouse is to look at the screen not at the mouse, and even if you were to look at it, your hand is covering it up.

For those reasons, I find it neither aesthetically pleasing nor a joy to use. It's unfortunate that aesthetics have been merely associated with how something looks when it's just sitting there and doesn't take into account a pragmatic, active angle (not saying that that's how you associate aesthetics, brianwillis).

billmcneale• 16 years ago

Allow me to push the irony further.

Apple makes great computers, great phones and sucks at pretty much everything else.

Microsoft, a company that found out in the mid seventies that the software business would be much more profitable than hardware, is making software of questionable quality but manufactures fantastic keyboards and mice.

Universe, you win.

guyzero• 16 years ago

OMG Gruber loved the new iPhone! Who would have guessed?

gloob• 16 years ago

While I sympathize with your feelings on the matter, there's no need to be snarky about it.

phreeza• 16 years ago

He talks about how awesome audio and video quality on Facetime is. Yet, these are supposedly just SIP and H.264/AAC, or am I missing something there? Does Apple add some magic juice to these open protocols/codecs?

tcdent• 16 years ago

He's speaking of the call quality compared to a standard voice call.

adbge• 16 years ago

Haven't you heard? If it's Apple branded, it's obviously better. It's like the placebo effect, but instead it's the Apple effect (which, if you've been paying attention, makes it even better!)

In all seriousness though, I don't understand why Gruber posts this garbage and feels compelled to defend Apple at every turn. We don't need Apple's every action fucking analyzed to death by someone who is obviously too invested in the company to be objective. If I want to read this type of inane pandering, I'll ask the hipsters at Starbucks for the URL to their blog.

pkulak• 16 years ago

"This is the result of a new manufacturing process Apple has pioneered. No other company gives a shit about things like this."

Samsung is doing this for their new displays. And they were out before the iPhone 4 was even announced. But, to Gruber, if it's not Apple, it's automatically crap. No sense acknowledging its existence.

danudey3• 16 years ago

I might be mistaken, but I believe he's referring specifically to bonding the LCD display to a capacitive piece of glass, rather than just regular protective plastic.

(Does Samsung use glass in their displays? They all look plastic to me.)

ZeroGravitas3• 16 years ago

No, it's not glass vs. plastic he's talking about (and yes Samsung Super-AMOLED screens are glass anyway). The original poster is correct, Gruber believes this reduction in layers above the screen was pioneered by Apple because they made it seem like they did in their introductory videos and thinks it unique because he neither knows nor cares about things happening outside the sphere of Apple. He doesn't even just say that it doesn't exist (which is of course not true), he says it couldn't exist outside Apple because no-one else cares.

jrockway2• 16 years ago

The OpenMoko phone also had a higher number of pixels-per-inch than the iPhone 4. And this was years ago, by a no-name hardware company.

The reason other phones don't have a "retina display" is because it's expensive, and the other phones are trying to win market share by being cheap. Sadly, this works better than making a quality product.

chrisbolt• 16 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_displays_by_pixel_densi...

Openmoko: 282ppi

iPhone 4: 326ppi

sabj• 16 years ago

I find the hardware to be very delightful, in most respects, and I appreciate the thought and efforts that Apple puts into creating a unified software/hardware 'product solution' even if I disagree violently with some of the philosophical assumptions baked into that in both physical form (hold it differently, buy a case!) and software (you'll like the software we offer you, and we know best what you might want!).

All that aside... I can't say I really enjoy reading daring fireball, for many of the same reasons eloquently described in this thread. Substance (of a sort), but without soul.

jasonlbaptiste• 16 years ago

my favorite point:

"I think Apple is going to be able to get the price on such an iPod Touch below $200 before Cisco is going to create iMovie-like editing software for the Flip."

hop• 16 years ago

A love letter to Dieter Rams

Except its less durable and the unsymmetrical breaks in the steel band take away from its clean, minimal aesthetic. The band's function as an antenna is compromised by conductive fingers.

I normally would not be so critical, and I do not know I have designed it better... but when you gush like this for Ram's style of functional industrial design, the criticism is a comin'. The 27" iMac I'm writing this on however, may be the truest object to Ram's style that exists.

FYI Dieter Ram's 10 principles of good design:

Good design is innovative

Good design makes a product useful

Good design is aesthetic

Good design makes a product understandable

Good design is unobtrusive

Good design is honest

Good design is long-lasting

Good design is thorough down to the last detail

Good design is environmentally friendly

Good design is as little design as possible

doron2• 16 years ago

The screen is stunning. I found it annoying that Apple released the Ipad but a month before without it. It seems they could have pulled that one easy, but i guess we will see this in Ipad2, its fair business, but still kind of a dick move in my mind, I am glad i didn't get the ipad yet. I can wait for the retina enabled one.

I am not an Iphone user, but I held friends 3gs and the 4 to compare, and found the smooth block disconcerting, it was harder to cup the phone, and introduced a mild strain on the fingers, it felt slippery, prone to fall out of my hands if i am not too careful, which is often the case when i pick my cell. I suspect that I would have got used to it had I handled one for a longer period of time , but I have to ask, why should I?

The design strikes me as beautiful (the most elegant mobile phone design i have seen to date) But I also think that the design choices Apple imposes, exclude a good number of people physically,(minor discomfort for me, due to a hand injury) some people prefer physical keyboards because of the physical capabilities of their hands,why not make a version for them? Not to mention the great benefit IOS4 and apps can give people working in more physically hazardous environments that are missed by not having a little more variance in industrial design choices.

Its pretty much agreed by both people who dislike and people who love apple, that Apple is not looking to fulfill every niche of the market, it is a source of contention or pride, depending on where your sentiments are.

I am too much of a tinkerer to use an Iphone, i feel it restricts me. Indeed, Apple products, restrictions and other idiosyncrasies drive me mad, and so i don't use them.

I do recognize that these are issues of personal preference, and by most measures i am not the hypothetical "normal person" that always appears in most Apple reviews.

So I fully recognize the genius behind the design, it is elegant and beautiful, without peer in the industry (for shame) and it is also true that the "just works" cannot be overstated. It is simply of no personal concern to me, because i take pride in making things work on my own, and rather enjoy it, as i mentioned... tinkerer

But I would have bought my mom one without thinking twice about it, ware it not for the limited physical options, she cant handle it in her age with her hands, this exclusivity by Apple is a pity, and in that sense it is a bad design choice, I suspect elderly people, factory workers, or people that need to work with gloves would love to have a phone that indeed "just works". this exclusion is something I always found to be the chink in apples design ethos, imagine an apple designed product specifically tailored to the elderly, or an Apple designed tough industrial strength laptop or Ipad.

Lazlo_Nibble• 16 years ago

There is a world of difference between getting acceptable manufacturing yields on a 300ppi+ iPhone-sized screen and a similarly-dense iPad-sized screen.

doron2• 16 years ago

I am sure there is,but can it be done? If it is possible, then its inevitable future design iteration, and worth the wait, because i suspect it will come soon, or am I wrong?

teebes• 16 years ago

To a lot of you criticizing how in love with Apple he is... well it's not like Gruber hides being pro Apple, or that him taking sides on a personally owned blogged makes him a bad source of information and observations.

How biased he is can certainly be borderline infuriating at times but I don't know any other blogger right now that writes about Apple and consistently makes observations that weren't obvious to make. He also has a compelling talent for seeing the big picture and making pieces of the puzzle fit.

ergo984• 16 years ago

Even though this is the Haus of Gruber (why, exactly, does everything he post get FPd here? Confirmation bias, perhaps?), I'll take my downvote suffering-

>In fact, Apple seems very confident regarding everything it decided for the original 2007 iPhone

Except multitasking in apps. Actually, scratch that, except apps altogether. Two major shifts in direction.

Of course Gruber led into that talking about hardware. There you can look at the fact that the iPhone pre-4 had a worst-in-class DPI, but now with the 4 it's all about the Retina display. DPI is suddenly where everything is.

The original iPhones were about feminine curves. The new iPhone is about kick-you-in-the-face masculine squares.

And then the front-facing camera (a common complaint on the original iPhone). The volume buttons. And on and on. Original perfection indeed.

The iPhone 4 is a brilliant phone. I'm morally against Apple's dominance of mobile, yet it's hard to gather the strength to argue when a friend talks about possibly getting an iPhone 4: It's a hard choice to argue with.

Yet Gruber's salacious, disturbing love of all things Apple; his automatic justification of everything Apple does; is very tough to stomach.

As a somewhat unrelated aside, one thing that really strikes me about the iPhone is the large amount of wasted space. It's interesting seeing it near >=4" phones and they barely eclipse the iPhone in size, the huge bezel (esp. on the bottom) of the iPhone making a small screen in a large phone.

bmalicoat• 16 years ago

I agree with some of what you say but I don't think you can say Apple changed on including apps. They didn't include apps from the first gen due to the huge engineering effort required to successfully support 3rd parties and have the mechanisms in place to distribute apps. Launching a v1 product and including a ton of 3rd party support for an unproven phone would have been a big gamble. Coming out with it a year later isn't waffling, it's a smart business move.

commandar• 16 years ago

Except that when iPhone launched, they didn't say "we're still working on supporting 3rd party apps"; instead the official line from Apple was "if you want to develop for iPhone, write web apps." Even Gruber called it ludicrous at the time.

jsz03• 16 years ago

His quote makes a lot more sense in context:

* In fact, Apple seems very confident regarding everything it decided for the original 2007 iPhone. There are no new buttons, or even moved buttons. The Retina Display is emblematic of the iPhone 4 as a whole, both hardware and software: the same fundamental idea as the original iPhone, but clarified. It hasn’t really changed so much as improved — like the same picture in increasingly sharper focus.*

Insofar as the automatic justification how does that explain his questions on the durability of the glass back? Missing italics which he urges people to bring to Apple's attention? His statement that the antenna issue is, worse case, a fatal design flaw? Seems like you're kind of spinning the article a bit to me by omission.

ugh5• 16 years ago

If you read something with the sure belief that someone is biased you are liable to read all sorts of stuff into what someone is writing. I think that’s exactly what’s happening here.

Maybe I’m naive but I really do think that way too many people read way too many things into what Gruber is writing – things he never actually said.

chc4• 16 years ago

The only part of his comments that really amounts to negative criticism is about the glass back.

He isn't hard on Apple about the missing italic face in the same way he is about e.g. Microsoft's errors (he basically treats it as a regression for Apple to fix), and it's a gross distortion to characterize his verdict on the antenna as "This could be a fatal design flaw." Almost every mention of the antenna issue is cushioned with soothing positivity. He repeatedly states his belief that reception only drops when your reception is lousy to begin with, and overall he seems to think it's likely that the issue will be helped by a software patch, or maybe a small hardware fix. The "fatal design flaw" angle is brought up very briefly, immediately said to be unlikely, and then further softened by reiterating his belief that the issue doesn't affect your reception that much anyway.

I mean, I like Gruber. He's a good writer and has a lot of interesting insights and I actually value his opinion, but you'd have to be stark raving mad to read his blog and think, "Wow, this guy is kind of hard on Apple."

loewenskind• 16 years ago

He does this a lot. I've called him out on before but he seems to have such an irrational hate (hinted at in his post with the "moral objection" bit) that he doesn't even realize it.

barrkel• 16 years ago

I agree with you that fanboy fawning makes one queasy.

I do want to point something out about bezels on iDevices, though. They make accidental touches with the base of your thumb rarer when you're using the device one-handed. With only one hand, and holding the device in your palm, your thumb becomes your primary way of interacting. But that means that the base of your thumb is pushed against the edge of the device, and slightly touching the front of the device. This turns into either spurious touches, or spurious multi-touches (think: drag turns into zoom) if the very edge of the device is sensitive to touch.

The solution is to have a little bit of a dead zone there. This is the one area of my Nexus One which annoys me - the N1 seems to have a comparable bezel, but it's actually sensitive very close to the edge. Consequently I often have to hold the N1 not securely in my palm, but resting on my fingers, so that the base of my thumb is nowhere near the edge of the device.

jasongullickson• 16 years ago

My favorite line:

"No other company gives a shit about things like this."

...pretty much sums up the major difference between Apple and every other electronics company, perhaps with the exception of litl.

samaparicio3• 16 years ago

I for one am getting tired of all this undeserved attention to things that don't make a difference in anybody's lives. This iphone doesn't make anybody more productive, more empowered, more effective, less frustrated. It doesn't free up time for anybody and doesn't do anything new.

In fact, I just wrote the complete opposite of Gruber article: a comparison of the GREAT things that are unique to iPhone and to Android for startups trying to get something done.

http://www.ringio.com/2010/06/29/iphone-vs-android-getting-o...

pohl4• 16 years ago

Blogging about the hype only constitutes more hype. Your actions are at odds with your intent.

samaparicio3• 16 years ago

Pohl... I didn't blog about the hype. I wrote about real differences that make a user's life better.

For example: I said that Android's turn-by-turn navigation will lower the chances of you getting lost on the way to the airport.

Or that the pictures and videos you take on an iPhone will look better.

What I'm trying to get at is that a lot of these reviews (like Gruber's) focus on irrelevant or marginally relevant issues for real users.

It's great that the iPhone 4 has a hi-res display, but what is the impact?

10ren• 16 years ago

Re: the speed test video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGu4h1vP3qM

I count it as 7, 14, 28 seconds for 4, 3GS, 3G - seems like x2 per generation to me.

martythemaniak• 16 years ago

One has to read Gruber's review and Ars Technica's review of the iPhone 4 to see the difference between a fan boy and a level-headed writer.

Before I clicked the link I bet myself I would not see a single criticism and Gruber was predictable in his praise. The iPhone 4 is perfect, like every other piece of anything Apple puts out. yawn

ubernostrum2• 16 years ago

Before I clicked the link I bet myself I would not see a single criticism and Gruber was predictable in his praise.

So you just skipped the parts where he brought up criticisms and pointed out things he thinks are missing and speculated on ways Apple could resolve them?

tfh2• 16 years ago

> No other company gives a shit about things like this.

There was a time where I really liked John's articles. Now he's sounding like just another fanboy...

Hari_Seldon2• 16 years ago

But he's right, can you name another tech firm that cares as much about these things?

I remember reading something a while back about how much time Apple spent on getting the angle (directon) of the mouse pointer right on the original Mac.

tfh2• 16 years ago

It's not about _what_ he says but more about _how_ he says it. I'd rather read something like "Other companies don't take these things seriously" than "No other company gives a shit about things like this.".

MichaelApproved• 16 years ago

Enough

IPhone 4

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