512 Pixels

A week ago, my Verizon-powered iPhone 4 showed up at my door.

Longtime readers know that I switched to Verizon over a year ago, and carried a Motorola Droid, a Palm Pre Plus and a Razr over the last 13 months.

For me, Verizon’s coverage is better than AT&T’s. In fact, AT&T’s coverage was so poor where I spend most of my time, even the iPhone wasn’t enough to keep me on the network.

When Apple and Verizon announced the CDMA iPhone was indeed coming, I was excited. I pre-ordered one at 2 in the morning.

My wife wasn’t thrilled about the alarm clock going off in the middle of the night.

Hardware

Put simply, the iPhone 4 is the sexiest piece of kit I’ve ever owned. And I have a G4 Cube in my collection.

The glass and steel design is stunning. In fact, I really don’t think it would look any better if the glass were white. I love the separated volume buttons, and the silent switch is a tiny little marvel all to its own.

I’m carrying mine without a case on it, and while it can be a little slippery, it feels a lot better in my hand than I thought it would. I used my brother’s 3GS the other night, and it felt crazy huge.

Oh, the camera. A wise man once said that the best tool you own is the one you have with you. With the iPhone 3GS, I never felt great about taking a ton of shots with my phone, due simply to picture quality. While the iPhone 4 can’t match my Canon PowerShot G9 or Rebel XT in outright horsepower, it’s pretty close. The HDR can work magic, in the right situation.

I love that the antenna gaps on the CDMA iPhone are even on both sides of the unit. Combined with the lack of a SIM slot, the sides really are clean looking. It has a more refined look than the GSM version.

Software

Even though I haven’t had an iPhone for over a year, I did have an iPad for several months, and my wife and I share an iPod touch. I’m not a stranger to iOS 4 by any means.

The iPad is fast, no doubt, but the iPhone 4 feels faster. I can’t prove it at all, though. Its hard to remember that this OS was built for this form factor. And while I think the iPad is elegant, it can feel sparse at times. I had forgotten how tight iOS on the phone.

Thing is, side-by-side, every iPhone runs the same stuff. And that’s what is so brilliant about this platform.

The Network

Like I said above, Verizon is killer. The call quality is super and the coverage is unbeatable. Verizon’s signal seems to be far better at penetrating buildings, which is nice, too.

No-data-while-on-a-call-gate is not a big deal to me. It has never once been a problem. Verizon’s network is usually slower than AT&T’s. The fastest I’ve clocked it so far is 1672 Kbits/s down with 302 Kbits/s up. Not fantastic, but totally usable.

It is good to be back, ladies and gentlemen.

Ian Hines:

I’m quite comfortable with my nested folders. I like having a place for everything, and knowing that everything is in its place.

I like folders, don’t get me wrong.¹ But unless Notational Velocity learns some new tricks, I’m not willing to use them for plain text storage.

Oh, HTC. You hurt me.

Dave Caolo, on using file names as an organizational method:

The trick is in how files are named. Ben Brooks wrote about this today. I like his method, though I’ve adopted a simpler syntax. For example, a note meant for 52 Tiger (be it a post idea, reference note, etc.) starts with “52tiger.” The note that became this post was “52tiger text post.” This keeps things in alphabetical order and acts as a simple categorization for the apps that don’t support tags.

I’ve been using this method for quite some time. Here’s a sample screenshot of Notational Velocity running on my iMac. It really is great.

If I could add one thing, it’d be this: I put a lowercase z at the beginning of the file name to archive older notes. This simple addition puts them at the bottom of the list, but preserves my organizational structure. Clever, right?

This is one of the main reasons I sold my tablet.

Apple:

Like many of our customers and others around the world, we were disturbed and deeply saddened to learn that factory workers were taking their own lives at the Shenzhen facility of Foxconn.

Recognizing that we would need additional expertise to help prevent further tragedies, we launched an international search for the most knowledgeable suicide prevention specialists—particularly those with experience in China— and asked them to advise Apple and Foxconn.

Two leading experts accompanied Apple COO Tim Cook and other Apple executives on a visit to the Shenzhen factory in June 2010. This group met with Foxconn CEO Terry Gou and members of his senior staff to better understand the conditions at the site and to assess the emergency measures Foxconn was putting in place to prevent more suicides.

[…]

In August 2010, the independent team presented its findings and recommen- dations to Terry Gou and senior executives from Foxconn and Apple. The team commended Foxconn for taking quick action on several fronts simultaneously, including hiring a large number of psychological counselors, establishing a 24-hour care center, and even attaching large nets to the factory buildings to prevent impulsive suicides.

Hit the PDF for the entire report.

[via Daring Fireball]

Anandtech:

Inside, the CDMA iPhone has a substantially changed antenna and RF design to accommodate that diversity. There are two cellular antennas in the CDMA version, as opposed to one in the UMTS version. With the phone facing up, the first cellular antenna consists of the new strip at the very top. The second is the strip running from the bottom left, across the bottom, and up the right side of the phone. The far left side with volume buttons and the vibrate switch is part of the WiFi and Bluetooth antenna.

I cannot, for the life of me, get the “death grip” to happen on my Verizon-powered iPhone. Be sure to check out the whole review — it is great.

Oh my, that is sexy.

[via 9 to 5 Mac]

I think it is unfair to hold the Iconfactory guys to a bar set by Twitter.app — built by the service’s in-house developr and released very late in Twitterrific 4.0’s development cycle. That said, I think Ben’s done a good job at listing the app’s shortcomings.

Twitteriffic — on all platforms — is a complex app. Craig Hockenberry and his team give users more than one way to do things. I think most of these will get resolved quickly — the Iconfactory has always been very quick to fix things. Besides, most of what Ben doesn’t like could be solved by giving the users more options — the very thing the developer is prone to do.

I’m using the app both on my iPhone and on my Macs, and am quite happy. I think Twitterrific 4 has some ground to make up, but I really like where it’s headed.

Art Terry, a professor at the University of Memphis with over 50 years experience in photography, on Damon Winter of the New York Times winning third place in the annual “Pictures of the Year” competition with a photo shot with an iPhone and the app Hipstamatic:

Photography is about seeing, recording the world around you from your own unique point of view and perspective. Apparently for some, if you want to see the world as a journalist you have to use a certain kind of equipment. We are past the days of the rangefinder Leica with black and white film — at least for every day use. I hated to part with mine. These critics need to get over it and move on.

Snobbery in any form is seldom excusable.

We have a new breed of haves and have nots these days. We really shouldn’t be playing the game of my camera is better than yours. Wedding photographers are having a hard time because uncle Charlie has a full-frame DSLR. While uncle Charlie may be proud of his high-priced machine and it will take impressively sharp and colorful images, that does not make him a wedding photographer. Sadly, while many newspaper editors would want to make it so, putting a camera in the hands of a reporter going to cover a story does not make that reporter a photojournalist.

Almost any camera, in the hands of a professional, can be made to take acceptable, if not exceptional photos.

Brilliant.

Apple Insider:

When Nokia wanted to convince the world that it would bring consumers “stellar hardware and innovative software and great services” in its partnership with Microsoft, it turned to Apple’s Mac-only iMovie to get word out, potentially violating the non-commercial use clause in Apple’s licensing agreement.

Sometimes, I think sites just post things like this for the traffic the keywords will generate.

I also think no one really gives a crap if Nokia used iMovie or not — including Apple.

Federico Viticci:

The problem: iOS notifications get in the way, interrupt one’s workflow or media consumption and once they’re gone, they’re gone.

This is the number one thing that has frustrated me moving back to an iPhone after using a Droid for almost a year.