iPhone 4 (POS)

[Ed]

I was really looking forward to getting my iPhone4, but I'm disappointed with it after being delighted with my original iPhone 3G for the 18 months I used it. Yes, the camera is better, and it has a video option, but that's the only improvement I can see over the 3G.

The reception issue came to light not long after I bought it, and that coupled with it just dying for no reason today has made me think I made a mistake buying the damn thing. I went to charge it this morning, but found it unresponsive. I tried everything. Charged it all day. Nothing. Finally got home and looked it up on the internet and I find a 'hard reset' brings it out of 'hibernation mode'. I pressed the home and on/off button simultaneously for ten seconds and lo and behold it woke up. However, I now see loads of posts from people saying their phones just up and stop working for no particular reason. Not something I want in my ideal phone. Apple apparently say you should switch off the phone and restart it every few days to keep it happy. Why? My old phone has been happy for a year and a half without me having to reboot it all the time.

I'm not loving it. Expected more from Apple.

[fnord33]

I'm sorry to hear that. You'd think that they would put more of an effort into such an expensive toy. I had a similar-ish disappointment recently. I bought a new ASUS wireless N router and I can't get the damn set up. My wife has a degree that qualifies her to manage an IT department and it's too complicated for her. We were warned about the set up process by the reviews, but we thought we'd be smart enough to figure it out. We've even flashed it with a couple of different firmwares that were supposed to help. Now we feel very stupid. 

[Ed]

I hate that sort of thing, and I thought we'd gone past that stage in computer development with the invention of 'plug and play'. I'm looking forward to the day when we have Star Trek computers that you just tell what you want it to do and it just  does it.

[JonP]

Trouble is, that will happen around about the time when the computers tell us what to do and we just have to do it

[Geoff_N]

Trouble is, that will happen around about the time when the computers tell us what to do and we just have to do it

It's called Unplug and sleep - forever. I wonder if Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics is being programmed into our new smartypants gadgets? I guess not. We're doomed, doomed!

[delboy]

I have a family full of people that, when a phone bleeps at them, they drop everything and start pressing buttons. Nothing is as important as reading that text and replying immediately. It's pretty scary. They even get annoyed when, on rare occasions, my phone bleeps announcing that I've received a text and I ignore it... "You've got a text," one of them will say. "Uh-huh," I say, carrying on with what I'm doing. "Aren't you going to read it?" "Maybe later..." They get very edgy knowing that a text message exists somewhere in the household and is not being addressed.

I wonder what their kids' generation is going to be like?

Derek