Gotta do it really – undeserved iPhone 4 apathy

Interesting little introduction yesterday for the iPhone 4, I thought.

Steve Jobs launched a product beset by tales of worker suicide with a broken presentation.

Putting behind the stories of poorly paid workers at the Foxconn iPhone factory commiting suicide, Steve leapt forth, struggled through demo-itis (it had to happen at some point), and gave us a product slightly and subtly better than the last one.

Over the last few months, people have been getting wise to the iPhone hype. As Tommi Ahonen outlined last month, the continuing strong figures from Symbian and RIM have pegged the iPhone to the same market share for a while now, with Android being the real success story over the last year. Also I am noticing that a few more voices are piping up and saying that there really is more to the mobile phone world than the Apple PR monster.

So can we gloat a bit about our prediction that last year’s lacklustre iPhone developments would be swallowed up in a glut of Android handsets? Well… maybe a little..

However, it is again fantastic how violently hype swings from one side to the other. The press have been distinctly muted this time round, with even Engadget using the opportunity to show they are not biased with an unflattering spec review against Palm, Android, Windows and Symbian rivals. A quick look on Google shows that rather than screaming it’s virtues, the press have been more than happy to bemoan it’s lack of progression, or even (gasp) ignore it entirely.

But, as with two years ago, and the introduction of 3G, this year I am just really impressed at how Apple have iterated a great device to add things that really make a difference.

Yes it may be true that the forward facing camera was a feature that we early birds in mobile UI design saw on the Motorola A820 and NEC e303 back in 2002, but Apple only introduced it when it was a feature people saw a use for, rather than just a techy gimmick. Yes they increase the screensize, but only when they really have to, to make it easy to develop for (a problem that Android app developers will soon find). But when they do – what a screen! It’s not far off my laptop screen, yet even then it is in roughly the same aspect ratio as the old one ,so allowing apps and sites to scale to fit easily.

Yes the 5 megapixel camera is so 2007, but the old camera always punched above it’s weight, and this one will still have the amazing view finder and camera UI that actually allowed people to see the photos they are taking, rather than vastly compressed facsimiles.

Yes multitasking is long overdue, but at last we can see what can be done with it when opened up to the huge Apple dev community, rather than just the backroom lads that have typically got stuck into Android…

At last, the iPhone is what (in my mind) a good Apple product always should be. It is not the most advanced. It is not the “best” (most techy and feature packed). It is however beautiful, easy to use and works perfectly in the Apple ecosystem.

So, at the risk of being beaten up again by swathes of the techworld public opinion, let’s hear it for the iPhone.

I might even buy one now.

B