Revisiting the iPhone 4

I’ve been increasing the amount of time I carry my Galaxy S3 instead of my iPhone 4, both because I do like the larger display and so that I have a real feeling for the UX for work. But with the release of iOS 6 I shifted back to using my iPhone 4 for awhile to get a sense for the new OS.

Two things struck me after reversing my usage trend. First, the display on the iPhone 4 is still amazing after 2+ years. The display on the S3 is good, but the iPhone 4 display is better. Second, Android apps are still aren’t in the same class as iOS apps. 4-ish years after the release of Android and I still can’t find an RSS reader as good as Reeder or a task management app as good as Things. Carrying my iPhone again really highlighted how I’d shifted some tasks to my tablet instead (which I carry to work largely to use on light rail) because I didn’t have a good app for them on Android. The Android community needs to figure out how to encourage Android developers to raise their game beyond “good enough”.

I have one more observation on the iPhone 4 after briefly swinging by an Apple Store last night to play with the iPhone 5: I actually prefer the solidity of the iPhone 4 to the lighter-weight iPhone 5. The iPhone 5 almost feels too light, which admittedly is a strange complaint about a mobile device.