Like most sensible people, as soon as Apple announced availability of the awesome iPhone 4 I order myself one. Not merely because, as a developer, I was interested in producing applications and therefore required a testing device. I was just blown away by its feature set and could see real value. I’m a father of a young family (5 and 7 at the time of writing this) and an avid live music fan. Although Family Dodd owns a perfectly acceptable Camcorder, we never seem to have it handy when we want to capture a moment with the kids (or record a snippet of my favourite bands at a gig *wink wink*).
And then the twittersphere became alive with rumours of left-handed black magic. Individuals were forcing awesome device to somehow lose signal or drop calls. I didnt see what the fuss was all about, at first. Living in North Essex UK at the time, I just couldnt get the magic to occur. Was I not from the correct satanic sect I wondered ? Seriously, in truth, I never lost a call between the time I received my device and that kind Mr Jobs informed me I needed to order a free case to resolve the “so-called” issues. I was more concerned (and still am) with issues I’m having with the proximity sensor during calls. It would appear the little devil cannot seem to recognise I’m still on a lengthy call if I’m a tiny bit covered in perspiration, forcing the screen to be once again touch sensitive.
And then I moved to rural Northumberland in the North East of England …
I think its fair to say that one could describe my residence as being ‘Out in the sticks’. I’m almost 3km away from my nearest ADSL exchange, although we pay for an 8Mb/s DSL line, we achieve a mere 1.4Mb/s in practise. I cant see the nearest mobile tower (and dont even know which direct to look for it – its so far away). Boy! Was it easy to contribute to antenna-gate now ! I could drop a call at the blink of an eye (so long as I held the phone left-handed).
And then the fateful day came and my inbox received the good news …
Delivery of my Apple sponsored Bumper would be the very next day. I installed said Bumper the moment after the package hit my floor. I have been using the Bumper now for several days and never drop a call. I should also mention that my iPhone is my primary business communication tool (next to email of course), so a drop-free device is very important to me. Well done Apple for the fix, but I do wonder come September, when the free bumper offer ends, that a hardware revision might become available for new iPhone4 purchases …
I have to mention a few negative points before I call this post to an end. The Bumper negates the use of the iPhone4 dock. This is non-sense to me. Why design either without consideration for the other ? Dont reply to me and suggest I merely remove the Bumper before I insert the device in the dock. This is as crazy as asking someone “have I tried switching it off and back on again?” in a support call. My main issue with the bumper is much more important – particularly if you are male (I suspect) and like me prefer not to use a wallet to hold credit cards when going out. I keep my iPhone sans Bumper in the same trouser pocket as my credit cards when out shopping/dining/drinking etc.
The bumper has the uncanny knack of trapping a credit card firm against the face of the iPhone when extricating the device to answer calls, or use an app. It hasnt happened yet to me (because I’ve stayed sober I imagine), but I can see, the risk of losing a valuable credit card increasing due to this unwanted feature of the bumper/phone as alcohol consumption or distraction increases …
So be warned fellow Bumper users.