The iPhone 4 has been out for over a month now, and there are numerous, comprehensive reviews on the Internet. However, one topic that I haven't seen addressed elsewhere is whether an attorney who is currently using an older model of the iPhone should upgrade to the iPhone 4. I was recently interviewed by the Quebec legal site Droit Inc. (Law Inc.) to discuss this very question, so you can read some of my thoughts here as long as you can read French (or don't mind reading this imperfect Google translation). If you'd rather get my complete thoughts directly from me (and in English!), the focus of this "review" of the iPhone 4 is whether those current iPhone owners who have been on the fence ought to upgrade. In short, if you own an iPhone 3G (or earlier model), the answer is yes. If you own an iPhone 3GS, the answer is probably.
The screen
Attorneys read a lot of text on their iPhone — e-mails, documents attached to e-mails, web pages, PDF and Word files that you keep with you, cases and statutes in an app like Fastcase, etc. Unlike previous iPhones that had a 480 x 320 screen, the iPhone 4 doubles both dimensions to provide four times the pixels, and thus the iPhone 4 has a 960 x 640 screen. But those are just numbers, what does it mean in real life? It means that text on the screen looks beautiful. You cannot see the dots that make up the characters; it feels like you are reading a printed publication. The reading experience is so much more pleasant that now, whenever I find myself looking at text on an earlier model of the iPhone, I am taken aback by the difference. (And until about a month ago, I thought that the iPhone 3GS had a wonderful screen.)
Of course, it's not just text. Photographs are much richer on an iPhone 4, just beautiful to look at, and apps that have been optimized for the iPhone 4's screen look much better.
Nevertheless, the #1 reason to upgrade to an iPhone 4 is that you will love the screen. Reading text on a small screen is often less than ideal, but with the amazing iPhone 4 screen, you won't mind.
Speed
If you are upgrading from an iPhone 3G (or earlier model), the speed increase of the iPhone 4 is incredible. If you have an iPhone 3GS, the speed increase is noticeable, but not dramatic.
Why does speed matter? It's not like you are using your iPhone to create the next Star Wars movie (although it has been noted that the iPhone is more powerful than the computers that were used way back when to create Star Wars). It matters because the increase in speed makes the iPhone so much more responsive. E-mails, pictures and web pages jump to the screen more quickly, you can switch between apps more quickly, everything just has much more pep. This speed makes you forget that the iPhone is doing work for you and instead lets you just focus on the subject of the task that you asked the iPhone to do. With a faster iPhone, you are more efficient, and more importantly you feel much more efficient.
Of course, if you are a "power" iPhone user, the speed has other advantages as well. For example, if you want to edit video shot on your iPhone using Apple's iMovie app, you need to have the iPhone 4 because of its speed (and additional memory). Older, slower iPhones are not really up to the task.
The iPhone 3GS is fast enough for most tasks that it is debatable whether the speed increase alone is a reason to upgrade. But if you have an iPhone 3G, speed is likely to be one of the top reasons that you will be happy that you made the jump to the iPhone 4.
Kids
The iPhone 4 has a much better camera. It can take five megapixel pictures (up from three on the iPhone 3GS, and up from two on the earlier models), plus it does a better job taking pictures in low light, plus it has an LED flash to take pictures in very low light. And the improved camera also allows you to take HD video (720p at 30 fps). Will that camera help your law practice? Probably not, although it is worth noting that if you ever use an iPhone to take a picture of a document as a cheap substitute for a portable scanner, the better camera on the iPhone 4 will be a vast improvement.
But we all know that your life is more than just your law practice, it is about your loved ones, including, if you have them, your kids. The better camera on the iPhone is great for people who have kids. You never know when you will be at the park, the zoo, or just around the house when your child will start to do something cute. Unless you are a professional photographer, you are unlikely to have a nice camera with you at all times, but you will have that iPhone and in just a few seconds you can get it from your pocket and shoot a picture or take a short video. The iPhone lets you capture those moments to bring you smiles months and years from now.
As a side benefit, if you ever let your kids play with your iPhone (and in my experience, most children over two years old can figure out an iPhone and love to play with it), once you upgrade to an iPhone 4 you will have a spare iPhone that you can let them play with without worrying so much about whether they drop it. (And without a working SIM card, you won't have to worry about them making a call — unless you left your Skype app on there!)
While I'm talking about kids, I should mention that the iPhone 4 has a front-facing camera that allows you to do FaceTime video chats. Right now the other person has to have an iPhone 4 for this feature to work, but I'm sure that any day now, Apple (or someone) will make it possible for an iPhone 4 to conduct a FaceTime session with a desktop or laptop computer running a program such as iChat. Once this happens, you'll be able to more easily use video chat to tell your kids goodnight when you are traveling, as long as you have Wi-Fi in your hotel room.
Better reception
Notwithstanding all of the recent news stories about how you can decrease the bars on your iPhone by touching a certain spot on the bottom of the left side, in my experience the reception on the iPhone 4 is much better. I now get a 3G signal in locations where I never got one before. In my opinion, Apple's decision to put the antenna on the outside of the phone was one of trade-offs. It leaves more space inside of the phone so that you can have a larger battery and longer battery life, plus the antenna on the outside usually gives you a better signal — unless you are in an area of weak coverage and you place your finger in that one spot. Those trade-offs are definitely worth it, in my opinion.
If you love your current iPhone except for the fact that sometimes it doesn't get a signal in certain locations, I suspect that you will find that the iPhone 4 does a better job in those problematic locations.
In sum
There are lots of little features of the iPhone 4 that I also love. For example, the new three-axis gyroscope makes some iPhone games much better. The LED flash makes a mighty fine flashlight when you are walking around your house in the dark. A second microphone near the top of the iPhone works to cancel background noise while the microphone at the bottom of the iPhone picks up your voice, improving the quality of phone calls when you are in a noisy environment. The battery life is a little longer, especially compared to the iPhone 3G and earlier models, so you are much more likely to go a full day without needing a recharge. But as nice as these features are, I can't say that any of them qualify as independent reasons to upgrade (except perhaps for the better battery life).
The iPhone 3GS is a great phone. It is almost as fast as the iPhone 4, and if the camera and video chat features don't matter to you (and I know that for many attorneys they will not), then it really just comes down to the screen. It is a gorgeous screen, and I think that the screen alone is a good enough reason to upgrade, but reasonable minds could differ on that. Thus, I think that the iPhone 4 is probably a worthy upgrade if you own an iPhone 3GS, but it is something to think about. On the other hand, if you own an iPhone 3G or earlier model, stop reading this website and go buy an iPhone 4 now!
UPDATE: Tom Freeland shared some thoughts in a comment to this post that I thought were worth elevating to the post itself to provide another perspective on why you might want to upgrade:
I upgraded a week ago and have a slightly different list:
1) Speed and some other not-quite tangible improvements in how it works. In addition to working faster, I have the sense it works better, both in using apps (I'm having less apps just bomb out in mid-use) and have noticed other small improvements that add up to a lot. [Jeff adds: I suspect that this is because the iPhone 4 has twice as much memory as prior models.]
2) The camera is huge in what it offers. The two banner pictures on my blog now were taken with it. I can't overstate how much better is.
3) The device is much better designed in ways that suggest to me it will be far more durable. Look at the buttons, just for starters.
4) I'm thinking it does get better reception, although I have had at least a half-dozen dropped calls that are a really startling experience — boom! Call gone! — like nothing I ever had before, so this may be a wash. I've ordered a free case.
5) I did a road trip last week using the map, and have the sense there are some tweaks and improvements to how it works.
Finally, if you installed the 4.0 software on a 3G phone, you may encounter some bumps in the road that cause you to upgrade (that happened to me. Apple tech support did not say kind things about the advice I got from AT&T about how to deal with the problems, which included ending my ability to get both voice mail and text messages).
All said, this is quite an improvement of a device I already liked a lot.
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