The iPhone 4

The iPhone weeks after release. Where are we now?

Much of the world has come to know the joys of the iPhone. This most recent model, the iPhone 4, soldover 1.7 million units.

“This is the most successful product launch in Apple’s history,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Even so, we apologize to those customers who were turned away because we did not have enough supply.”

Almost 77% of which were upgrades from the previous 3G and 3GS units. As many of you may already know, the newest model iPhone was not without glitches and problem on release day. Many complained of yellow screen tinting, others still had issues with the phone’s antenna. This should not defer you from purchasing one of these phones. The screen resolution and new operating system are not without value, and neither is the camera placement or FaceTime feature.

Apple has come out and addressed all problems to date: offering replacement units and free software updates as well as the obvious 30 day full refund return policy. They did in fact an address this in a Letter regarding the iPhone 4 on their website:

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

They go on to apologize for the anxiety they caused and say that the wireless performance of the unit is the best they have ever shipped. There is no doubt the specs are quite impressive.

Users have said that gripping the phone a certain way reduces signal. The metal bands surrounding the sides of the iPhone 4 also act as antennas for the device; so many individuals have bought rubber bumper cases to enclose the phone offering both protection and supposed better reception.

The phone has two slots in the metal frame that, when they are covered, do in fact affect performance. Antenna designer Spencer Webb explained the more technical aspect of the issue on his blog, "There is no way around this, it's a design compromise that is forced by the requirements of the FCC, AT&T, Apple's marketing department and Apple's industrial designers, to name a few." Apple’s official PR response can be seen at http://www.apple.com/antenna/.

Apple’s app collection is still the world’s largest, giving the iPhone vast capabilities on its 16 to 32 gigabyte drive. A recent release app could very well change both the shopping and social experiences. Bakodo is quite simply a barcode intelligence service. It is not the first of its kind, but it defiantly takes things to the next level. After downloading this app, you can scan a barcode of a product and Bakodo will search reviews and community ratings of the product in question. All the features of this app are listed here on its app store page. The app was just recently featured inMashable.com’s Spark of Genius series. See the Jennifer Van Grove’s article iPhone App Makes Barcode Scanning a Social Experience and see the comments of others as well.