iPhone 4 Review: Not As Good As Sex

Outside McSpleen's office today

So,  the ‘Spleen pre-ordered the iPhone 4 last week…and today, on the morning after, I’m affixing a sign to my office with the rules of engagement for touching my new toy. I feel obliged to review the sucker, if only because it’ll drive shameless amounts of topical traffic to the blog. Maybe the poor losers on long lines at the store will get a kick out of it.

Now, how great is it? It’s hard to explain in words; most of the online reviews tend toward lightly-rewritten boilerplate and glossies from the Apple’s own launch material, along with vague and wistful predictions. So, instead of that utter garbage, I wanted to impart a more realistic view with a  comparison between the iPhone 4:

vs. Good Italian food: I tested this side by side and the homemade calzone lost big. While it was really the perfect blend of cheeses and topped with thick, chunky sauce, it did end up being too heavy in the hand and the voice quality was awful.

vs. Being Attacked By a Shark: This was not side-by-side, but the memory is pretty fresh, so I think it bears comparison. Getting the iPhone out of the package is almost the same adrenaline rush. The bowel-shredding fear is also at nearly the same level, only in this case, it’s fear of how long the activation call to AT&T will last. There’s also less blood in the water.

vs. iPhone 3G: It’s faster, thinner, flashier, sharper-looking, and has almost every cool feature Apple advertised on their iPhone 4 site. Head to head, it’s more of a TKO than a flat-out knockdown, but it’s worth it, especially with the upgrade only $200. Sell your old one… as of last week, your old 3G with the screen that cracked when you dropped it in the toilet will still fetch $125.

vs. Sex: I also tested this side by side and unfortunately, it just does not stack up. I know some of you will object, but please take it elsewhere. If the way you’re doing it makes the iPhone 4 seem like a Roman orgy complete with farm animals, you have serious, serious problems and need to get the hell

away from my blog.

The New Hotness. Old and Busted in the background.

So, what does it have? What is the real story?

The screen is the draw. It’s higher-resolution. It’s sexy. It’s shiny. It’s bright. It’s smooth. It makes everything else available (for at least the next 24 hours) look like total crap.

The case has sides at right angles done in a nice metal strip around the unit. It’ll still slip out of your hand, but not like in the same  ‘Oh, shit, I dropped the soap!’ way the 3G squirted away.

It does the other things the Droid, Pre, and others simply shamed it into doing, like:

Tethering. Buried in the General options is the ability to turn on network tethering, which is not a technical feature, but a way for AT&T to reveal that the words ‘Unlimited Data Plan’ is based on a Latin phrase meaning ‘We got you now, you son of a bitch, so pay up!’

Less Hilarious Excuse for a Camera. The 5MP camera is a nice upgrade considering my 3G’s camera was roundly bested by the $19 Hello Kitty Keychain Digital Camera available by the checkout at Rite Aid.

Multitasking. I never understood why you needed multitasking on a smart phone. If your mail and notification threads are running in the background (which they always have), why bother slowing down the phone rendering your Julia set fractals in the background? I mean, seriously, who does that? Anyway, it seems to be implemented seamlessly, meaning you don’t have a Start bar or Finder menu, the stuff just runs. I highly doubt anyone notices anything different.

You get the new stuff, too:

Video Calls, aka FaceTime. Despite being touted as ‘working out of the box’, it actually arrived turned off, and when activated, took dozens of tries to register with the FaceTime system. Obviously, it’s wi-fi only. But…this opens up a whole new world of video phone etiquette…it’s bad enough to get a call while you’re straining on the pot, but to have to answer it while the veins in your forehead are bulging just isn’t anyone’s idea of sexy technology.

Well, the ‘Spleen will continue to update as there’s new discoveries with his little friend.