Quote :

"And picture the scenario where you have to put your phone down on concrete. Previously, you just it down back first, because you didn't care what the back looks like. Now that the black is shiny and smooth and glass, what do you do?"

Luckily, it hovers in the air like the magical device it is.

http://gizmodo.com/5559977/first-broken-iphone-4-shows-new-glass-isnt-that-resistant

6/10/2010 2:53:50 PM

^Wow, when Gizmodo bashes something about an Apple product, it must be a valid complaint lol. I've never had a cracked screen on either my 2G or 3GS. Either I was luck or had good cases? But the back being glass too is going to mean a lot more people with broken phones.

6/10/2010 3:23:24 PM

Not to mention I don't want the back of my 3GS getting anymore scratched than I would want my iPhone 4 to get scratched. Its kind of a stupid point.

6/10/2010 3:24:58 PM

The gizmodo thing said apple was going to release their own case - what does that look like?

6/10/2010 4:23:03 PM

Not really a case, seems more just like a band that goes around the side. Almost like a way to add some color than anything that actually protects it.

http://gizmodo.com/5557485/apple-iphone-4-case-called-a-bumper

6/10/2010 4:30:11 PM

huh

I wonder if it's thick enough to keep the phone surface from making contact with whatever surface you put the phone on.

6/10/2010 5:59:24 PM

I think thats what its intended to

6/10/2010 6:10:32 PM

Quote :

"I've never had a cracked screen on either my 2G or 3GS. Either I was luck or had good cases? But the back being glass too is going to mean a lot more people with broken phones."

I'd say a little bit of luck, and whole lot of coordination. It seems like one of the problems with the ever shrinking sizes of electronics combined with their ubiquity has reduced people's care for their devices.

6/10/2010 7:57:29 PM

or simply means that these devices are used so much that despite an overall high degree of "care" with one's device, there still arise occasions -- due to the increased time spent using the device, which should statistically increase your opportunities to damage said device --
where the device gets damaged.

I consider myself careful with my iPhone, but I have dropped it (but it does have a hard plastic case, from Power Support).

Case in point: I sit down on the subway, set it on my lap, reach into my bag (on the seat beside me). pull out laptop, set it on my lap and open it. iPhone starts sliding down my lap towards the floor. (maybe i sit funny?)

Usually I stop it, but there have been a couple of occasions where it was dropped.

Forgot it was in my lap (90% of the time or more it isn't), stood up, bam. etc.

[Edited on June 11, 2010 at 3:03 AM. Reason : department of redundancy dept.]

6/11/2010 3:02:38 AM

And I've dropped mine. I've had mine smacked out of my hands an onto concrete and it hasn't broken (and no, I don't have a case). My wife is an absolute klutz, and though hers looks like it's been through hell and back again, it still works and isn't broken. But there are an amazing number of people that just abuse the ever loving fuck out of their devices, and in my experience they also tend to be the ones that complain the loudest when the device breaks, and the ones that always insist they did nothing to it, "it was just sitting there"

6/11/2010 7:58:49 AM

I've had three iphones and never had a case at all. i'd say i treat mine pretty rough. i throw it in my bag in the same pocket as my keys, etc. slide it around. the other day i put it in a grocery bag and taped the bag to my bike's rack and it rattled and clacked the whole 25 mile ride home and it was fine. haha the 3GS screen seems a lot tougher than the older ones, not a scratch on mine.

6/11/2010 8:16:12 AM

yeah i've had three as well.. first took two throws to a wall before it cracked the glass--continued to work fine for another year or so

got a 3g and it was fine until i dropped it from maybe 2ft and it put a crack in the back plastic

3gs somehow the screen got scratched when i've taken good care of it..no idea how it happened

6/11/2010 8:22:45 AM

My 3G has fared pretty well Ive dropped it a few times or forgot its on my lap and slung it when I stood up. I even kept it in my pocket through a weekend of both Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens with it smashed between my leg and the seat and it survived.

6/11/2010 9:14:39 AM

i consider myself pretty careful with my phone, i've had a clear plastic film cover over the screen which has worked great. I have a rubber case i use about 75% of the time. The 3G has held up really well even after half a dozen drops from 3+ feet. The only crack i have is on the bottom back plate, right where the charger port is, about 1cm long and dead in the center. other than that this thing is holding up well. Hopefully i can sell it to someone for a decent price once i get the 4

6/11/2010 9:37:22 AM

Quote :

"i consider myself pretty careful with my phone"

Quote :

"The 3G has held up really well even after half a dozen drops from 3+ feet"

lolwut

6/11/2010 9:39:05 AM

haha, i should have specified half a dozen drops since i've owned it. which has been a long while now.

6/11/2010 10:07:01 AM

i've probably dropped my 2G 100+ times and it has no cracks

6/11/2010 10:14:31 AM

Apparently Apple has also (very) slightly loosened the restrictions on interpreted code:

http://www.appleoutsider.com/2010/06/10/hello-lua/

6/11/2010 2:18:55 PM

3GS:


4:

6/11/2010 9:26:47 PM

i can tell from the pixels

6/11/2010 10:29:20 PM

never had a problem with scratches/dents/drops and I'm in construction... thank you otter box

6/11/2010 10:36:48 PM

I'm sure that thing does its job. But...Damn, that is one ugly case. Might as well get an Android Phone if you're gonna carry around something that clunky and ugly.

6/11/2010 10:47:28 PM

they've got one w/ your name on it my friend. I personally like a bulky phone, I don't know why. My favorite phone before my otterbox clad iphone was a nextel brick I had back in the 00s you could throw it through a window and it'd still work.

6/11/2010 10:51:42 PM

To each his own. It is cool that you can work construction and still rock a cool phone though.

6/11/2010 10:58:27 PM

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/06/reports-ftc-to-investigate-apple-for-mobile-policies.ars

Quote :

"Apple just can't catch a break among US regulators these days. Just as the ITC announced it would investigate HTC's patent violation claims against Apple's mobile devices, The Federal Trade Commission is reportedly beginning a formal investigation into Apple's decision to block out certain software from its iOS (previously known as iPhone OS) and whether it qualifies as an antitrust violation. The investigation has not gone public, but insiders speaking to Bloomberg as well as the Wall Street Journal said that the FTC was gearing up to proceed with the probe after having settled its cage match with the US Department of Justice over who would investigate. (Rumors had popped up last month that the two agencies were deciding which should look into Apple's decision to block most third-party compilers from creating iPhone and iPad apps.) Both the FTC and Apple declined to comment on the latest report, but it's an open secret that Adobe is likely one of the parties behind the complaint to federal regulators. Another party may be Google, which recently voiced its opinion on Apple's decision to only allow independent ad platforms on iOS that were not affiliated with a competing platform. That situation also caught the attention of both the FTC and DoJ, both of whom are reportedly considering launching an inquiry on that matter. It's no surprise that Apple's contentious and possibly anti-competitive practices are coming to a head now as the battle for mobile supremacy is still anyone's game to win."

6/12/2010 8:05:22 AM

About damn time!

6/12/2010 11:14:59 AM

^^Yes! Won't matter for this gen for me as I'm switching to Android, but maybe things will improve enough to make me switch back. I doubt it though. Jobs is a visionary and great at coming up with desirable products, but he's a paranoid control-freak.

Great quote from a story I read the other day:
http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/techtonic-shifts/2010/05/20/sayonara-iphone-why-i-m-switching-to-android.html

Quote :

"We've seen this movie before. In the 1980s, Apple jumped out to an early lead in personal computers, but then got selfish. Steve Jobs, a notorious control freak, just could not play well with others. Along came Microsoft, with Windows, which was a knockoff of Apple's operating system. Microsoft partnered with everyone and today has 90 percent market share, while Apple's share lingers in the single digits. Today the battlefield is mobile devices, and just as before, Apple jumped out to an early lead. And just as before, Jobs got selfish. He won't support Flash, or any cross-platform tools—because he wants developers locked into his platform, and his App Store, where he collects a 30 percent commission. He's created his own advertising platform, and stacked the deck in his favor by refusing to share user data with other platforms. On that one he'll take a 40 percent slice, thank you very much. He's even censoring content, ruling out material that he deems to be offensive. Not just porn, but anything that's racy or suggestive, or that "ridicules public figures." What makes this even more insulting is that Jobs tries to dress up his selfishness as a kind of altruism. He says it's all about creating a beautiful experience, that while he may be selling you an intentionally crippled device, he's doing it for your own good. Well, bull. The truth is, this is about Apple wringing every last dime out of its ecosystem and leaving nothing on the table for anyone else. As sick as I am of my iPhone's dropped calls, I'm even more sick of Apple treating us all like a bunch of idiots, stonewalling and bullying and feeding us ridiculous explanations for the shortcomings of its products—expecting us to believe, basically, that its flaws are not flaws, but strengths."

[Edited on June 12, 2010 at 5:50 PM. Reason : url]

6/12/2010 5:49:47 PM

I personally think Apple's lack of flash makes sense, flash sucks for the most part and I can't see me navigating a flash page on my phone. Opening up to other app storees would be cool, but for the masses I think it's better for the masses to go through iTunes. Now in regards to their entry into ads.... Google brought this upon themselves. Google has gotten greedy, not apple. Had google kept on their side of the pool I think apple would have done the same but the massive diversification of these huge companies is getting out of hand. It eon be many years and google is going to be handing out free cars in exchange for you letting them track where you're going.

Btw picked up 2 microcells today, one for office, one for home. Awesome.

[Edited on June 12, 2010 at 8:06 PM. Reason : I not a]

6/12/2010 8:06:26 PM

^^ You know, for all the whining about Apple's closed system (and yes they are indeed more closed than Google) they have done something quite amazing in the world of cell phones. First of all, it seems no one remembers cell phones before the iPhone. With the exception of some WinMo devices, the very idea of a consumer being allowed to control the software on their phone was unthinkable. Not only did Apple open the way for consumers having the choice in their phone software, but to be perfectly honest, they've done it in a way that works for a vast majority of consumers. The tech geeks the world over will bitch and whine about not being able to install GCC and doing a make install on their favorite LISP compiler so that they can write their own SNES emulator, but most people want to install a couple of games and apps, and they want to do it without all the complexity that defines modern personal computers. Apple has provided that, and while Google has a good approximation, it's not quite the same and not quite as easy and not quite as simple.

6/12/2010 10:29:01 PM

has anyone reserved a device at an Apple store before?

I'm gonna reserve an iPhone 4 at Southpoint but probably won't be able to pick it up on the 24th until around 6 or 7pm. I thought I heard for the iPad you had to pick it up by 3pm or something?

The next day I will be selling a mint 32GB 3GS

6/12/2010 11:02:24 PM

yeah, my 3G had an "issue" so i sent it in for warranty service
planning on selling it in the next few days... i still have the original box and everything too

6/12/2010 11:23:02 PM

so what kind of "issue" can my phone have so i can get a new one? pm for instructions plz

6/13/2010 11:24:43 AM

^^^^the only thing I"d want Flash on the iPhone for is http://prezi.com

mmmmmmmm

but otherwise, yeah... no need for it, really.

6/13/2010 11:40:48 AM

Quote :

"The tech geeks the world over will bitch and whine about not being able to install GCC and doing a make install on their favorite LISP compiler so that they can write their own SNES emulator"

Yes, this is exactly what tech geeks are complaining about

And as much as you want to say the consumer is "allowed to control the software on their phone", that's only the case if that software is approved by Apple.

6/13/2010 11:52:28 AM

^ i know right.

save the strawmen for the soap box please

6/13/2010 12:06:08 PM

So if I pre-order a phone on the 15th does it ship to my house or do I have to go into a store to pick it up since it requires activation?

6/13/2010 12:24:47 PM

If you pre-order it from a store, you will generally pick it up from the store.

If you pre-order from the internet, you will get it shipped to your doorstep.

You activate it over the phone, regardless, so the issue is whether you want to wait for "unusually high call volume" to subside in your home or at the store.

6/13/2010 12:29:49 PM

Quote :

"You activate it over the phone, regardless,"

i've always activated over the internets

6/13/2010 12:30:53 PM

Quote :

"And as much as you want to say the consumer is "allowed to control the software on their phone", that's only the case if that software is approved by Apple."

Which is pretty much exactly what consumers want. This may come as a shock to tech geeks, but most people really don't want to have to worry about whether an application they install will delete their other data, or fuck up their install so that they need to wipe their computer or phone or start draining their battery because the programmer doesn't know how to set up a background service. They don't like having to worry about whether or not the weather app they install will also steal their credit card information and send it to someone in East Kalimazoo. And while I have my doubts as to how long Apple can keep it up, so far they've done a damn good job of making that sort of pipe dream a reality for their customers.

6/13/2010 12:49:33 PM

Such fear must be why only "tech geeks" own Android or webOS devices.

6/13/2010 1:10:47 PM

i'd venture a guess that the general buying public doesn't know much about about apples closed app store vs android's open marketplace, and the benefits/drawbacks of each. it sounds like you're speaking for consumers here, on a topic of which they're mostly ignorant.

6/13/2010 1:14:55 PM

This thread constantly has Apple fans touting how Apple knows what "consumers" want and how it's just "tech geeks" complaining.

The irony is that if you own a smart phone that isn't made by Blackberry, you're probably at least a little more on "tech geek" side than the "general consumer" side.

6/13/2010 1:24:19 PM

Quote :

"Which is pretty much exactly what consumers want. This may come as a shock to tech geeks, but most people really don't want to have to worry about whether an application they install will delete their other data, or fuck up their install so that they need to wipe their computer or phone or start draining their battery because the programmer doesn't know how to set up a background service."

You raise a fair number of valid points. The average Apple user would be perfectly happy merely with access to Apple's App Store and it's list of requirements. Plus there are a lot of factors of the Apple review process that are very positive to the consumer (you listed them, monitoring for code problems, or trojans for instance).

But since Apple's stated that they won't approve apps that repeat functions of Apple base apps(up until Opera got their browser through) then that goes above and beyond "defending the consumer" to "using their system to actively fight the competition".

Even if Apple opened up the iPhone and let alternate App stores be used most customers would probably still go thorugh Apple's App Store to get their apps. The "tech geeks" and secondary "people who read what tech geeks write and try out apps/programs based on their advice" would use the unapproved apps, but that's generally who's using them now anyway.

6/13/2010 2:12:32 PM

Quote :

"But since Apple's stated that they won't approve apps that repeat functions of Apple base apps(up until Opera got their browser through) then that goes above and beyond "defending the consumer" to "using their system to actively fight the competition". "

and that's pretty much what the anti-trust investigation is going to be after. Is apple using their platform and market leader to decrease competition in favor of their own products. It's not goin after the open vs closed system argument because that's really not against the law.

6/13/2010 3:32:29 PM

Quote :

"Such fear must be why only "tech geeks" own Android or webOS devices."

Certainly all the people writing "good bye iPhone I'm going to android" diatribes are. The vast majority of the people I know who own Android devices (or at least Android devices to which this discussion is relevant) are indeed tech geeks. I can't speak for webOS as I don't know anyone with one. I do know a quite a few non tech people who bought a Droid because they wanted something like an iPhone but didn't want to switch carriers, and they all got a different phone within a couple of months. Obviously I can't speak for everyone, and I have yet to come across a study asking consumers to self identify as tech geeks based on their smart phone of choice. Your experience may be different, but if so, you'd be the first I've spoken with. That isn't to say that non-tech people don't buy and use androids, nor is every consumer's desires the same as any others.

Quote :

"i'd venture a guess that the general buying public doesn't know much about about apples closed app store vs android's open marketplace, and the benefits/drawbacks of each. it sounds like you're speaking for consumers here, on a topic of which they're mostly ignorant."

A considerably valid point, but one which only serves to prove how silly the whining over open vs non open market places and app development policies is. Consumers pretty much don't care as long as they can get the apps they want. And even then, they pretty much don't care about the reasons.

Quote :

"Even if Apple opened up the iPhone and let alternate App stores be used most customers would probably still go thorugh Apple's App Store to get their apps. The "tech geeks" and secondary "people who read what tech geeks write and try out apps/programs based on their advice" would use the unapproved apps, but that's generally who's using them now anyway."

I can't speak for not duplicating functionality, I think that's a pretty damn stupid policy too, but this much the reasoning pretty much boils down to two things. Apple wants to control the experience and make it as seamless as possible, alternate stores and apps removes that control and seamlessness. Secondly support. Ask anyone who worked for Apple when the intel macs came out, as soon as Apple released bootcamp and despite the fact they explicitly said there's no support, they still wound up having to do a crap ton of end user support on it. It would be the same with third party unapproved apps. Even if they say no support, you're on your own, they would still wind up having to support it, and whatever lousy experiences are caused by the poor apps would be ultimately blamed on them.

6/13/2010 4:50:23 PM

I sold my 3G this past weekend. Planning on preordering this week. Already miss the damned thing. Reverted back to my old Sony Ericsson w300. As much as I hate Apple, they got it right with the iPhone. Didnt think I'd miss a 2 year old gadget this much.

6/14/2010 10:07:38 AM

^If you don't mind me asking, what did you get for your 3G? I plan on upgrading when the 4 comes out and have contemplated selling my 3G. Thanks!

6/14/2010 11:30:02 AM

yeah, i can't wait. my first gen iphone needs to go.

plus it'll be nice to look at a screen that isn't shattered.

6/14/2010 11:31:38 AM

I sold it for $150, actually here on TWW. There were two other people lined up if that deal fell through. Looking online, it looked like $200 was the standard price, and mine is in very good condition with all original boxes, and even the apple store bag.

^ Yeah, you are in for a huge upgrade. I honestly dont know how you lasted that long with the 2G. That is the reason I didnt buy the first one.

[Edited on June 14, 2010 at 12:32 PM. Reason : .]

6/14/2010 12:31:51 PM

I haven't had a data plan in the two years i've owned this, and just used wifi for all my data needs. Of course, sometimes that sucked.

I still won't pay for one now, but i moved to a different position at cisco, and now my phone bill and data plan will be paid for (i gotta pick up the tab for the phone itself, which is small potatoes).

6/14/2010 1:22:29 PM