Update on the iPhone 4 reception situation.

This morning, I went to the Novi Apple Store and spoke to a technician, bypassing AT&T completely (from whom I ordered the phone on launch day).  I explained my problems, how I more or less hated the iPhone 4 and its unreliability made the phone unusable for anything other than novelty.

Karl, my tech, seemed to understand my story completely.  He ran a few diagnostics on my iPhone 4, saw my problem, and quickly offered to swap out my phone for another.  I agreed.  Truthfully, it was the only solution I was willing to accept, as I have tried a ton of other quasi-solutions that are posted all over the web.

Curiously, the phone he gave me was something he called an 'engineering' phone, one he claims has been tested very thoroughly to ensure it's a error-free device.  It came out of a hard-shelled black plastic/composite box, and Karl said each of them ship in two other padded boxes to ensure safe travels.  In his words, it's a 'known-quantity' unit.  If I have problems with this, they'll likely be a result of the AT&T network, software or a drop on the other end of the call, but ostensibly not because of this particular iPhone 4 unit.  These phones, he told me, more or less eliminate hardware issues from a diagnostic equation.  At the very least, they represent a clean hardware slate.

(The new phone also is likely a product of a later manufacturing build; i.e. it's not a day-one launch unit.  Could Apple have been tweaked in manufacturing since pre-launch?  Possible, but who knows?)

I've no idea yet if this phone will wind up being an improvement, but I'll say this: Apple has always taken care of me as a customer.  Would Motorola do the same thing?  Could they?  One might argue that a Motorola Droid X wouldn't be dropping the calls like an iPhone, so support wouldn't be necessary.  Perhaps.  But that's missing the point.  When I've needed support from Apple, I've gotten it.  Every time.

So, we'll see how this goes.  If the problem persists, I'm afraid it'll be time to move away from the iPhone and AT&T.

On any given day, I drop 2-4 calls on my iPhone 4 with AT&T service.  Today, on the way into the office, I dropped 5.  The phone was resting in my car's center console, so I can't even blame the Death Grip/Antennagate fiasco.

I can just say there's something inherently wrong with the iPhone 4 -- at least the very early production units I and a few friends received on launch day.

My mobile phone is my only phone.  It needs to work.  And I have reached my breaking point.  The iPhone 4 is the worst 'phone' I've ever used, and AT&T won't do a thing about it.  'Get a case,' they say, completely ignoring the fact that I don't touch my handset when I'm in the car.  (I use Bluetooth.)  Regardless, they'll do nothing -- not even a clean exchange of my iPhone 4 for another.  Apple just tells me to deal with AT&T, because I ordered it through them.

This past weekend, I spent some quality time at a Verizon dealer with the Droid X.  What shocked me was my immediate impression: for the first time ever, Android has become a true competitor to the iPhone.  This is a watershed moment: all previous Android versions were clunky and slow and felt built with baling wire and duct tape.  Android 2.1, running on the Droid X, was nice.  Very nice.  Not as polished as iOS, and the hardware wasn't up to Jobs/Ive snuff, but it was quite nice unto itself.  Put another way: it wasn't shit as some would have you believe.  And Android 2.2 (Froyo), announced at the 2010 Google I/O, is right around the corner.

I'm very seriously thinking of moving off AT&T/iPhone to Verizon/Droid X.  I'm an ardent Google user anyway -- cue up the lock-in drums and Skynet fears -- and the integration with Gmail, Google Calendar, Gtalk, Maps and other Google-based services is compelling.

I'm looking for real-world stories of those who have made a similar move.  Are you happy with the Android OS?  Do you have a Droid X specifically?

Any and all comments welcome.  Do share.

I'm not going to recap the many back-and-forths regarding the iPhone 4's reception problems.  Suffice to say there is a very demonstrable spot along the steel edge where you can place a finger and pretty much assure a dropped call or stalled pageload.  I can do it with mine consistently, and I have friends who can duplicate it just as easily.

Today, Apple released a statement in which it proffers a forthcoming software fix for the issue.  The fix, according to Apple, will adjust the algorithm responsible for the way the iPhone 4 reports signal strength (in bars), and do nothing whatsoever for the signal itself.  So the "fix," essentially, is to leave the actual reception problems unchecked while more accurately displaying how shitty your signal is in terms of bars.

Not sure how this is a fix other than Apple will finally be reporting actual signal strength instead of whatever Fantasy Unicorn Number it used before (the one that led to puzzling dropped calls when each party had five bars).  Apple made the decision to report, um, 'optimistic' strength in terms of signal a long time ago, and now, it appears, they have to reverse it.  Want to see public bitching? Wait until everyone applies the software update and starts complaining that their 'bars' aren't as good.

In my experience since activating my new phone, the iPhone 4 has considerably poorer reception than the iPhone 3GS.  My iPhone is my only phone, and I use it heavily.  I don't care about cleanroom numbers, I don't care about signal selection algorithms, I don't care about lab antenna performance.  When I'm talking to someone in a 'five bar' area and I drop SIX CALLS in the space of 10 minutes, something is up.  This was in an area that I travel daily and have held many a trouble-free call on my 3GS.  To boot, I'm noticing weird periods of voice drop-outs -- on both ends of my conversations -- and that's when I'm not even holding the phone at all.  For lack of a better descriptor, it just seems the iPhone 4 struggles to keep a solid, quality call online.  I saw no such issues on my 3GS.

John Gruber has a solid translation of the Apple press release into plain English that's good for a laugh or two.  What isn't funny is what's really going to happen: Apple is going to release this software fix that may or may not do something beneficial, while simultaneously making quiet changes in manufacturing to upcoming hardware runs of the iPhone 4.  Magically, this issue will be far less prevalent with newer phones.  I'll put money on it.

If you're experiencing reception problems with your iPhone 4, the smart solution would be to return it and then re-buy one a month or two down the road when more mature hardware is coming off the line.  It just may be what I do with mine.

From the press release:

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced a new update to Kindle for iPad and Kindle for iPhone and iPod touch, which allows readers to enjoy the benefits of embedded video and audio clips in Kindle books. The first books to take advantage of this new technology, including Rick Steves' London by Rick Steves and Together We Cannot Fail by Terry Golway, are available in the Kindle Store at http://www.amazon.com/kindleaudiovideo.

The Kindle app for iOS devices now out-features the Kindle hardware itself.

I mentioned in my iPad review that the machine needs a print subsystem ASAP, and what do you know? The latest rumor is that direct printing (via Bluetooth and/or WiFi) will be part of tomorrow's iPhone OS 4 announcement.

Again, as I said in my review: improvements to the iPad will move the device in the direction of today's modern laptop, not away from it.  It's 'tweener device' state is its beta state that's all about driving adoption.

Many people have been asking me for my iPad review, presumably because the glowing, over-the-top hyperbole that the mainstream outlets have gushing out their maws has been (a) read several times over already, or (b) met with some degree of skepticism, and they're now looking for a more real-world review from your average Joe on the street.

So, here goes, in no particular order.  I'm going to get a bit of cognitive dissonance out of the way first, so if it seems like I'm harshing on the iPad too much at first, read the whole thing.

(Also, I'm intentionally going to avoid the whole closed v. open debate, brought to a head by Cory Doctorow's screed, which I found to be quite off base for someone so typically astute.  I might tackle that later.)

Let's get back to the title of this post.  When I say 'caught between two worlds,' that's the overall feeling I have when using the iPad.  Some of this feeling is intentional -- remember Steve Jobs's slide that shows the iPad shoehorned in between the iPhone and laptop? -- and some of  it seems the unintended consequence of birthing a device that is simultaneously incredibly fucking good and brand new with no usage baseline whatsoever.

Examples:

I find myself wanting to get my calendar information, which is stored in Google Calendar, into the iPad's Calendar app.  But then, why?  The browser is fantastic, and its size and resolution encamp it firmly in the company of desktop browsers.  So, I fire up Google Calendar in Safari, and there she is, resplendent.

Caught.

I punch in an address in Maps and marvel for longer than I should at the gorgeous display and utterly massive improvement it represents over the iPhone's app of the same name.  I want to get some directions out of the app, but then I realize I can only email the link somewhere.  I can't print, because there are no print drivers or print subsystem.  My mind wants to do what I'd do with a 'main' machine, but I can't because the OS doesn't yet support certain desktop functions.  It's a mobile device that makes you want to work on it like a full computer.

Caught.

I took a bunch of campy pictures of my son as he tore through the house at just under Mach 1 to find his Easter eggs, and I want to get them on the iPad quickly and easily for viewing and light editing.  As of now -- with no USB ports and no commercially-available camera connection kit -- I can't, so while my mind says Yes, I want to do this work on this iPad because I enjoy it, I can't.  I have to use my MacBook Pro.

Caught.

There are other examples, but you get the point.

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Dave Winer with some interesting insight into what Apple may really be doing:

I said it's a lot simpler and more insidious. Apple doesn't care about web standards, nor do any other large companies. That term, and "open" are just fig leaves that cover up what they're reallly doing. Instead of opening things up, they're doing just the opposite. Closing as many holes as they can as quickly as they can. Because they're doing what the media business wants to but hasn't been able to do, yet -- control and monetize user programming of content. Apple and many (if not all) of the tech companies want to get the control back from the users. Of course they can't say this, and they won't. But actions speak louder than words.

Winer's take is that Apple is trying to close as many open holes as it can so that it, with the continued blessing of the entertainment industry, can provide a tidy way to monetize digital content moving forward.  It's about closing the many paths that are now open and only leaving one road, albeit likely paved with gold, open.  It's a curious analysis, one that has baked into it a certain amount of (well placed) tinfoil-hattery.

Winer's opinion runs counter to John Gruber's, who states that Apple is closing the Flash "hole" in the iPhone/iPad platform to 'enforce web standards.'  I tend to agree with Gruber, because with Apple, it's all about platform control.  The quicker Flash gets relegated to wherever it is that Flash opponents wish it would crawl, the faster, the argument goes, open web standards like HTML5 and h.264 can become mainstream.

It will be very interesting to see what's in the middle of all of this, where the truth often lies.

A conversation I have every month or so. Fellow iPhone users, this is our pickle.

Stephen Fry:

I know there will be many who have already taken one look and pronounced it to be nothing but a large iPhone and something of a disappointment. I have heard these voices before. In June 2007 when the iPhone was launched I collected a long list of “not impressed”, “meh”, “big deal”, “style over substance”, “it’s all hype”, “my HTC TyTN can do more”, “what a disappointment”, “majorly underwhelmed” and similar reactions. They can hug to themselves the excuse that the first release of iPhone was 2G, closed to developers and without GPS, cut and paste and many other features that have since been incorporated. Neither they, nor I, nor anyone, predicted the “game-changing” effect the phone would so rapidly have as it evolved into a 3G, third-party app rich, compass and GPS enabled market leader. Even if it had proved a commercial and business disaster instead of an astounding success, iPhone would remain the most significant release of its generation because of its effect on the smartphone habitat. Does anybody seriously believe that Android, Nokia, Samsung, Palm, BlackBerry and a dozen others would since have produced the product line they have without the 100,000 volt taser shot up the jacksie that the iPhone delivered to the entire market?

Just last night I listened to a guy in a bar, perched authoritatively in his seat, loudly proclaiming to his gaggle of four friends the iPad just a 'big iPod Touch' and 'useless' and 'guaranteed to be the biggest dud Apple released in the past 10 years'. I listened to this raptly for a while and then realized that if people can't see what this thing represents, they just don't get it.

It's really that simple.

As I wrote about before, there are typically two camps of opinion when Apple drops a new product into its matrix: those who see what Apple is gunning for, and those who don't.

With the iPad, the camp of those who don't understand is larger than I would expect, especially given the recent example of the iPhone's explosive success.

Fake Steve Jobs (Dan Lyons) on the iPad backlash, penned before the Apple press conference:

Because there is going to be one, trust me. This device isn’t as obvious as iPhone. It’s kind of subtle. Which means that those of you who have done the spiritual work to prepare for it will be fine, but those who haven’t done the work, well, they’re probably going to miss a lot of this at first. So you’ll see some noise about who needs this thing, it’s just a fancy desk ornament, and so on. I am telling you this now so that you can be ready for the harsh voices and they won’t hurt you when you hear them. Just let the negativity pass by you. Do not engage with it or try to fight it or argue with it. Step aside, and let the dark energy flow away.

Humor put briefly aside, my casual observation of blogs, forums and Twitter suggests the hating on this thing is unbelievable.  I see two camps emerging: one that gets it, one that doesn't.  At this point, the former seems considerably smaller than the latter.

Oh, but before we get started, there's also this: MS shill Paul Thurrott already pronouncing the iPad a failure.  Which he did before the keynote was even over. I needed to get that out of my system right from the get go.  John Gruber, be sure to file that one away for your early 2011 Best of Claim Chowder post.

So, moving along, I'll never quite be able to digest the hyper-reactionism and knee-jerk judgementalist attitudes of the Apple fanbase.  It doesn't matter if Cupertino releases the iPod, the iPhone or the iPad: if the device right out of the box isn't saving puppies and importing Russian brides automatically for lonely geeks, it's called underwhelming.  Today's backlash against the iPad reminds me of Slashdot's now-famous October 2001 reaction to the first-gen iPod: "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."

The iPad does most everything mainstream users want: email. Web. Gaming. Photos. Video. Books. Music. Not to mention the idea that you get to buy into an established software ecosystem of nearly all of the apps already sitting in the App Store.  The iPad, via the new iWork, also allows a new way to create content, not just consume it.  And nearly everyone is ignoring the value of the iPad SDK, which will give rise to iPad-tailored apps that will be phenomenal using such a large multitouch surface.  It weighs a pound-and-a-half.  Its battery will do 10 hours of video.

(Quick note regarding the lack of Flash: stop complaining about it.  Flash sucks in many cases, and with YouTube and Vimeo moving some of their videos to HTML5 + h.264, Apple is throwing its considerable weight around in web policy-making. They don't like Flash, and never will.  Deal with it.)

There's even a docking station and mechanical keyboard for the iPad, a peripheral category that Apple has long eschewed as worthy accoutrements for its products.

Reading between the lines, you can tell Apple brass has big plans for the iPad, way, way beyond what most of us (including yours truly) is seeing.  But I'm shocked at the amount of discontent I'm seeing from people who, apparently, needed a front-facing webcam so badly that everything the iPad does is rendered useless without one.  You Skype that much, do you?  Really?  Really?

But it continues: people are calling it 'underpowered' (despite reports to the contrary) and whining about a lack of Verizon support and (inexplicably) calling it nothing more than a 'giant iPod Touch.'  Hard for me to believe that so many people are missing what this thing represents (have they even seen the video?), especially once the other shoe drops.

And that other shoe, of course, is media deals.  With studios. With more publishers.  With magazines and periodicals.  With academic textbook houses.

There's a reason this isn't shipping for 60-90 days, and it's not all because of tight supply chain or violent outbreaks in Chinese factories: it's the ecosystem needs to bake a little more.  If you don't think you're going to see some interesting iPad announcements between now and its commercial release, think again.

I suspect we'll see the same pattern of naysaying, pshawing and predictions of how Win7-based slates or Android tablets or whatever will beat the iPad at its own game.  Until, of course, it starts dominating the market, creating new application classes, and putting competitors in the dirt.  Then everyone will get it.

Palm, RIM, Symbian and Windows Mobile fans: you know what I'm talking about.  Don't you?