Not being one of the lucky ones to have already picked up an iPhone 4, I had to survey two of Atomic’s best brains to see what they think of their shiny new gadgets. The overall feeling was very positive – which is unsurprising given that this is the 4^th generation so Apple have had time to work out most of the kinks. 

Let’s start with the big issues we’ve all seen in the news lately.  First of all – signal. There have been complaints that there is no signal when the phone is held by the lower left-hand corner. Matt, our ambidextrous Cameraman/Director/Lighting Specialist, regularly uses his phone with his left hand and has reported no issues. So, while I can’t say that there definitely aren’t any – our reviewers report no such problems.

The other main issue in the news has been the iPhone’s inability to show flash graphics. The controversy surrounding this issue has been swirling even more feverishly lately after Steve Jobs wrote a letter to Adobe in which he criticised them for not moving forward with their products and allowing them to be used on new and future devices. Basically, it’d be a nice feature for the iPhone to have, but it’s not completely necessary, and I think Mr Jobs was being a bit harsh in his letter (which you can read here:  http://tiny.cc/654d6. Check it out and come to your own conclusions), after all, the iPhone still seems to be doing well without this feature.

So those are the two main problems I’ve heard about so far, what about the good stuff?  Well, according to Tom and Matt, there are plenty of things that make the iPhone 4 worth purchasing. From the quality of the photos it takes to the ultra-sensitive touch screen, to the ability to multitask and the variety of apps available in the App Store, it all sounds pretty impressive. For Matt, the best feature is the speed – faster than the 3G, but slower than the iPad (which would both be expected) – it loads apps, web pages and does pretty much everything else you’d need it to quickly. For Tom, it’s the HD video camera that makes it – (check this video out, it’s the first cinematic film taken on an iPhone 4, and it’s pretty super:  http://www.vimeo.com/12866065) – high quality film like this isn’t something you’d expect from a phone.

So, basically, the overall feeling here at Atomic is that the iPhone 4 is that it’s good – so good, in fact, that our two reviewers, Tom and Matt gave it a 4 ½ and 4 out of 5 stars respectively. So, it’s not quite perfect, but it’s pretty close in their estimation.