As I Xi It

I just love that DoF!

Oooh, buttons

Oooh, speakers/mic

Oooh, aluminiumy

Oooh, homey

Well, my shiny, shiny new iPhone 4 was delivered promptly yesterday lunchtime. What proceeded that was a series of unfortunate events.

Opened the package, phone in excellent new condition eventhough it’s a refurb, connected to iTunes as per instructions and restored the backup from my 3GS to 4. While that was going on, I contacted O2 via webchat and conversed with “Charles”. I asked him where he was based and surprise, surprise, India! Asked him to remove the bar on my account and activate my SIM. He did as he was told and said that I needed to wait up to 2 hours for my phone to connect up to the network.

Three hours later, back on webchat I went and this time chatted with a “Benjy” who went on to tell me that “Charles” lifted the bar but didn’t activate my SIM. So he went and activated my SIM and told me that I now had to wait a further 2 – 24 hours until I was able to make and receive calls. About 30 minutes later, I get an email from “Benjy” telling me that my SIM was for a different number and that I would have to go into an O2 store to sort it out. Unfortunately, all the O2 stores near me shut at 5:30pm – 6:00pm so that wasn’t an option.

I didn’t trust “Benjy” so called up O2 and spoke to a real person, can’t remember what her name was, probably a Jane or Janet or something. She made no comment about my SIM problems (I just asked to activate my SIM), gave her my mobile no. and SIM code and that was that. A few minutes later, yay! I could see “O2-UK” on my phone. I thought all was well, but I couldn’t make or receive calls from it! A few minutes later again, I was able to make and receive calls, but now I didn’t have data access!! In the end, I manage to solve the data issue by reconfiguring the cellular data settings. It was just one palava after another.

To add to these connection woes, iTunes kept crashing during the photo optimisation process when I tried to upload my photos to it. Lost count how many times I tried. Some googling revealed that iTunes 10 has a bug and you have to deselect “include videos”. I’ve managed to circumvent the lack of vids by using the VLC player app which unfortunately has been pulled from the app store.

Shiny, shiny goodness

While the iPhone 4 has more features, I still prefer the shape of the 3GS. For me, the most striking difference between the two is the retina screen on the 4, it really is noticibly sharper than on the 3GS. Text is really crisp and images vivid. Those blues and turqoises from my Seychelles pics really pop! Speaking of which, I got a Case-Mate Pop case in red for it.

For those who are going to ask why I didn’t just wait for the iPhone 5, well, I would’ve been iPhone-less for a few months. Cant’t possibly be having that.