iPhone 4 review: Apps and Maps

Maps and Application review for iPhone 4 ~

What's one of the main things Apple is famous for other than all the other things you're probably thinking like Macs and iPods and Macbooks? Yes, that's right: applications. Not the Newton.
The iPhone 4 is only the start here - the phone really comes alive when you start filling it with simple to find applications.
For app-naive, the App Store has over 200,000 mini programs in the App Store portal - some are free, some cost as little as 59p, and some over £50. But the sheer range of options on offer is dizzying.

For instance, you can get a BBC iPlayer application, a camera manipulator to improve the quality of your photos, iMovie, addictive games like Angry Birds and RSS readers - all for next to nothing.
We can't really tell you how to use the application store, but go and have a nose around - the addition of iAds (which are advertising applications discreetly hidden within the apps themselves) will mean more money coming in, and therefore more applications in the future.

iBooks
One of the big ones is the addition of iBooks - this turns your iPhone 4 into an eBook reader with hundreds of titles to work with.
Oddly this was one of the few areas of the phone that struggled to process quickly, as you often had to wait for the tomes to load if you want to see what's in your library.

But turning the pages is easy as pie and you can bookmark and annotate your pages as you wish - with all these features copies over the iPad and iPod touch range, so if you start reading Sherlock Holmes on your iPhone 4 you can finish it off on the larger iPad later.
Although you sound like you're probably rich enough to hire someone to read to you if you have both an iPhone 4 and iPad.
The other applications that come bundled with the iPhone 4 are pretty basic to be honest, with the Clock offering alarms and countdown timers, the compass pointing at things and the voice recorder making recordings of voices, and allowing you to share them as MMS files easily.

The Weather and Stock applications could do with being updated, if we're honest, as having to open up the application every time you want to see what's going on is a bit of a pain - that's what widgets are for.
The iPhone is only part phone, and the rest of the experience is application based - if you don't make use of all the cool things on offer, which will only grow larger as things like a higher-res camera and location-based services that can run in the background become more prevalent.

Maps
As we mentioned, the iPhone comes equipped with a compass as well as the second best representation of Google Maps we've seen on a smartphone anywhere. The phone is able to locate you via cellular towers or the GPS chip in a very quick time, meaning it becomes much harder to get lost when the compass is pointing your direction too.
Google Maps on the iPhone doesn't have the impressive feature list it does on Android, like free sat nav with Google Maps Navigation and transit maps, but it does work quickly and use pinch to zoom to move closer to the text or picture, which is a nice touch.

One of the more recent features in Google Maps for iPhone is the ability to assign a contact an address, and then direct you to their location.
You can't use Google Latitude natively on the iPhone 4, which is a shame as that kind of market penetration for a service like this could really help it take off.
You can share locations with someone via text or email though - this is really useful, and something we've used a couple of times already when trying to explain to someone where we were in London.
If only Google Maps Navigation would come to the iPhone 4, it would become an even better device - perhaps Apple has something of its own in the pipeline, as Google has said it would consider licensing the technology.

iPhone 4 Review : Camera

Camera : Upgraded Sensors


The world grumbled about the cameras on the iPhone and iPhone 3G: 2MP with no flash simply wasn't going to cut it.
Last year the iPhone 3GS brought a 3.2MP camera when the world was readying itself for the first 12MP cameraphones – again, Apple seemed to be lagging behind.
So thankfully the iPhone 4 brings not only a 5MP camera, but also an LED flash and significantly upgraded sensors to improve picture quality.


And what a leap – this is so, so much better in terms of cameraphone quality. Any budding mo-phos out there (mobile photographers, in case you're wondering) will be very impressed with the quality of the camera on the iPhone 4.
For starters, Apple's overhaul of the sensor has done wonders for extending the light range of the snapper – now it can take excellent pictures in both low and strong light, even without the LED flash.
The options to mess around with are minimal – for instance there's no option to play with white balance or colour saturation, like that offered on the HTC Legend.
It's a shame because these little tweaks can really improve picture quality with little input.
But there is one ace up the iPhone 4's sleeve, in touch to focus.
Tapping an area of the screen not only brings it into focus, but also adjusts white balance and brightness very well, making the subject clear in any picture.
The LED flash is good, if not awe inspiring... it has a mid range throw that's perfectly fine for night pictures of your pals.
The digital zoom is silky smooth too, and it's dumbfounding how clear the pictures are at 5x zoom – take a look below to see how well they came out:


CONTRAST: The first image is taken with the focus on the leaves, and the second on the sun


DARKER CONTRAST: The same as above, but this time from a darker scene, which leads to a slightly less pure picture


DIGITAL ZOOM: The iPhone 4's digital zoom is top notch - at 5x closer the detail is preserved incredibly well

AUTO MACRO: There's no macro mode on offer here, but the iPhone manages to intelligently find the right level

TOO BRIGHT: However, if there's too much surrounding light it struggles to focus on the foreground

iPhone 4 review: Internet

Using Your Browser like Laptop

Another thing Apple has always excelled at is the internet experience on its phone – it used to be the leader in this area without a shadow of a doubt.
Then Android got its WebKit-browser together and with it came a real rival to the throne of best mobile phone browser – and we're not sure that Apple comes up trumps this time.
The Apple A4 processor under the hood certainly has sped things up though – the internet browsing experience is markedly improved from the iPhone 3GS, with web sites loading a shade quicker and scrolling through them a much more pleasant experience.

We're still 'limited' to eight open pages at once though – any more than that and you're not allowed to start up another window.

We can't see that being a problem though, seeing as nobody can need that much information on their mobile phone at once – plus the impressive thing is there's no slowdown in the operation either.
However, the same gripe is still there: no Flash video. Yes, we know the myriad reasons Jobs has for not putting Adobe Flash on the iPhone or iPad, but it leaves iPhone 4 users in something of a limbo state.
Jobs has stated that he believed HTML5 and other standards will take over from Flash video and be a better experience – which is a fine stance to take.
But in the meantime we're left heading to the official BBC site and being constantly exposed to the 'Flash not detected' messages strewn everywhere, which makes us feel like we've got an ancient device, not something that's supposed to change everything. Again.

On the plus side, embedded YouTube works on most sites, jumping straight into the dedicated iPhone client and playing back with minimal loss in quality.
Other little internet tweaks we like are the ability to turn a bookmarked web page into a home screen icon, offering easy access from the start, and the ability to easily email a link to your friends.
However, when you look at the browser on the HTC Desire, you can see it's probably ahead in the overall functionality stakes.
Firstly, when you zoom into text on the iPhone 4, there's only one size that fits all the text on the screen. It's perfectly visible, but if you want to head in further (using the excellent pinch and zoom) some of the text moves off the screen.

The HTC range will constantly resize text no matter how close you get, which gives you far more options, especially for the short sighted.
The Android browser also allows shipping links to Twitter, Facebook and SMS, as well as deploying the latest version of mobile Flash in version 10.1 – and doing it fairly well.

In fairness, the iPhone probably does copy and paste that little bit better, as the little green pins are very easy to grab and drag with the magnifying glass around to help out.
We never thought we'd say it, but the iPhone is no longer top dog when it comes to web browsing on your phone.

iPhone 4 Review : Messaging

Flexible Usability

The Apple iPhone 4 follows its predecessors in offering a large amount of messaging options, and that number has been swelled since the introduction of iOS4.
The keyboard – both landscape and portrait – is eerily accurate, and if you've never tried it before you'll be dumbfounded at how quickly you get used to smashing out messages as fast as possible.
The main method of interaction is through email, and Apple now lets you have multiple Exchange accounts on the iPhone as well as Gmail, YMail... in fact all kinds of webmail is supported.
And getting involved with these is as simple as pie – for our Yahoo account, it was simply a matter of username and password and we were away – slightly disconcerting privacy-wise but a dream to set up.
Google Mail can be done in the same way, or you can channel it through the Exchange route if you want to sync the contacts or calendar - Google has a good explainer on how to do it.
Corporate Exchange is a little trickier, as it requires you to know the settings and domain name and mail address – you might be better throwing the phone and a couple of beer tokens at your company's friendly IT guy if you're struggling.

However, the push email works a treat and the iPhone 4's new iOS 4 offers unified inboxes – so you can get all your email in one place without having to jump in and out of separate accounts.
The email interface on the iPhone 4 is a dream too – simply swipe from the right hand side of the message you want to erase and a little delete button appears as if by magic.
You can also easily select multiple messages to erase at once by pressing edit – you can also move the emails to a separate folder using this method too.
Another new feature is emails are now grouped together – you know the situation: you're having a five person conversation and before you know it there are 33 emails in your inbox all entitled 'Is spin class for only women?'.
Now they're all under one roof – simply click in to the subject email and you can see the debate in all its glory.
MMS was nicely set up in the way we've come to expect from Apple, with the option to send a picture or video directly from the item, or by hitting the small camera icon in the MMS message to choose a photo or video.

Strangely, if creating a message using the MMS editor, we could only attach a video or picture, yet MMS supports contact cards as well as sound recordings too.
While both of these functions allow you to create an MMS from the actual item, if you want to combine audio and a contact card you won't be able to in the current MMS editor.

Text messaging is laid out in Apple's favourite 'conversation' balloons, with easy interactivity with your chats and message lists.

The other option to contact your friends with is that old staple: instant messaging. The advent of the newer versions of the Apple OS mean push notifications and background running make much more sense on this new iteration, and the likes of Windows Live Messenger now finally appearing on the scene mean IM is a very easy way of chatting to your friends.

If we had one gripe, it's that Apple hasn't taken a leaf out of RIM's book and allowed the inbox API to be opened up. Imagine being able to see not only emails, but text messages, Facebook messages, Twitter mentions... all in one easy to reach place.
Come on Apple; let's see that in the next update, shall we?

iPhone 4 Review : Calling, FaceTime and Contact

Apple iPhone More Features

The Apple iPhone 4 is still meant to be a phone first and foremost, no matter how many applications you put on there or how much the internet experience is optimised.
Previous iPhone incarnations have struggled somewhat to offer the best telephony experience, so has Apple failed to deliver a decent calling experience again?
The answer is no and sort of... no in the fact that the call quality and stability has been jolly improved, but only sort of because the iPhone 4 has some very worrying coverage issues we'll come onto.

We mentioned the noise cancelling microphones earlier, and these really do work nicely. We wandered all through London and we were able to hear our friends in all kinds of places easily, so the earpiece is nice and clear.
The friends we were chatting too also reported a very clear and non-call-dropping experience as well - we purposely didn't tell them we were using the iPhone 4, and those that had prior iPhone use were genuinely surprised.
The speaker is also nice and clear too - the distortion we've heard on other phones wasn't present even at the loudest points - in short, perfectly usable as a conferencing device.
However, there's a major issue brewing here: the iPhone 4 loses signal if you hold it in your left hand.
Yes, we know, it sounds odd, but bear with us, there's a reason for this. Apple has been fairly ingenious in the design of the iPhone 4, and in getting it so thin, it placed the antenna, Bluetooth, GPS and other radio receivers on the stainless steel band running around the edge.
But it appears contact with the palm on the bottom left corner, the most natural place to hold the phone for many, results in bars falling quickly - see the video we shot as proof.
We were initially unconcerned, as we've seen the issue before on the iPhone 3GS, and calls didn't drop out no matter where we held the phone or how few bars we had.
But when running a speed diagnostics test using SpeedTest.net, things were very different: the average speed at 3G is around 500Kbps. With the iPhone 4 in the left hand this dropped to just under 10Kbps on the EDGE network.
If you use the Bumper, the shorting doesn't happen and there's no signal loss - on the contrary, things are very good on the signal and data front.
Apple has responded by simply telling users not to hold the phone this way – so it seems there's no fix on the horizon.
However, we'll be honest: while you shouldn't have to put up with such a major flaw in a mobile phone, it's not as much of a big deal as you'd think, and we couldn't make it drop calls even when the palm was heavily pressed on
It is very wrong that you can only either browse the internet using your right hand or holding the phone a little differently.
It's not a deal breaker if you're thinking of getting the iPhone 4 – but it is very annoying and does border on the ridiculous for a company that prides itself on such intense quality control.
FaceTime
Onto brighter things now, and Apple's odd choice to bring back video call with the new iPhone 4.
Basically, it's the same principle us Brits have been messing around with for nearly a decade - see your friends in real time while you walk around, and they can see you in turn.

There are many reasons why video calling has never taken off here, and one of them is the complexity of setting it up - at least Apple has removed that hurdle here.
You can choose to video call someone from their profile in your phone, or even switch the call to FaceTime halfway through to start up a video call instead.
A simple button press flicks between the front-facing VGA camera and the rear 5MP effort, and you also get the option to move the little pane showing your own face around the screen - although you can't put it right in the centre for comedy effect.

While it's true that the audio and video quality is much improved using the iPhone 4's FaceTime application, we still can't see why this will herald the second coming of video calling.
Sure, the likes of Skype have made video chat more popular, but sitting at your PC or in your living room and looking at a larger screen just seems more natural than talking to your phone.
Plus you can currently only use FaceTime over Wi-Fi, which surely needs to change very soon, as there's no way of telling if someone is going to be available or not when you want to chat, unless you're already on a call with them.
In our tests, we were overall nonplussed by the experience. The video quality didn't seem that different from front to rear camera, and the pictures were a little grainy, which we didn't expect over Wi-Fi.
One plus point – if you have two iPhone 4s, then you can FaceTime call yourself. If you've ever wondered what the back of your hair looked like properly, this is the way to find out.
Contacts
The contacts system on the iPhone is a pretty standard affair - you've got all your friends listed in the way you'd imagine they would be, and a little column of letters on left allows you to quickly find a certain alphabetical group of buddies.
You can also easily search for your friends using the Spotlight application too, if you're a little lazy, and the whole experience works nicely.
Contact information is pretty sparse, but all the fields you need are there - IM handle is the most advanced offering you get when adding in new info.

We much prefer the simple awesomeness of the HTC Sense UI on the likes of the Desire and the Legend - the ability to sync Twitter and Facebook, see your call and messaging history and even browse their photos is an immense feature.
Still at least the iPhone 4 does things simply - apart from the fact it gets a bit too formal at times in the listing process.
If you have a friend on your SIM card or Google contact called Mr Sweatband, for instance, he would have previously been listed under 'M', but the iPhone 4 sees his last name instead and puts him under 'S'. Little thing, but annoying there's nothing you can do about it.

Thankfully you can synchronise contacts from Google or Exchange as well as searching the latter's online server if you can't find the person you're looking for straight away.
This makes the porting process from another smartphone so much easier if you're not a previous iPhone user.