First day thoughts on iPhone 4

The day has finally come. After 2 1/2 hours in the reserved line, I was able to walk out with the iPhone 4 up and running, albeit without contacts, music, videos or my app collection.

Getting it home and synced was uneventful. iTunes detected the new phone and dutifully restored everything. A couple of reminders, however: First, some passwords won't survive the sync. I had to sign on to Pandora again, enter my email passwords once more, and tell my Navigon app that I did indeed purchase traffic and panorama view maps. Tapping their icons re-loaded them, but the panorama maps don't display properly just yet, while the regular 2D and 3D maps work just fine. Hopefully this will be part of a Navigon update that includes multitasking. Oh, and your Bluetooth devices will have to be re-paired as well.

Speed increases are pretty obvious and very welcome. I could easily discern the extra speed in bringing up web pages, long playlists and even the address book.

My old case is too big for the new phone, so I'll have to get something else. I looked at the Apple Bumper cases in the store, and thought they were fairly useless. I like having the back of the phone protected from scratches, and the Apple case just wraps around the edge of the phone. No thanks to that one.

I haven't seen any of the problems with reception that some have mentioned. I've put my clammy fingers everywhere on the antennas and can't get a signal dropout. On the other hand, I don't see that this new iPhone gets any better reception than the old one. There is a place in my neighborhood where the signal always drops out, so I checked that one, and bingo! It still does.

I like the look of the phone a lot better. It just seems more contemporary, having sort of a B&O look to it. It's amazing how something as nice as the 3GS can look out of date in only a year.

I tried to make a video using the new iMovie app, but it was a minor nightmare. I would choose a theme, and it would never register. It wasn't obvious to me how to get background music, although I figured it out eventually -- you have to double tap on the clip. Apple needs a complete tutorial on this thing. It is amazing that you can edit video on a phone, but it didn't seem simple to me, and I'm pretty experienced in video editing.

Summing up, I like the phone. I like it a lot. It seems a big jump from the 3GS, although many of the new iOS 4 features work fine on the 3GS if you update it.

I expect this phone to be a major hit for Apple. As of today, I think it is the best smartphone you can buy. At the price, it is very competitive. I think the only drawback that remains is AT&T, and that's not going away anytime soon. As far as I'm concerned, it's your move, Android.