Apple makes all the right calls on iPhone 4

Its fancy touch-screen established that a physical keypad or keyboard were no longer de rigueur for cell phones. Its dazzling browser proved you don't have to compromise the way you experience the Web on a mobile device.

Even its most strident critics - folks frustrated by AT&T's dropped calls, people who never cozied up to a multitouch display - must concede that the iPhone is the smartphone by which others are measured.

The new iPhone 4 I've been testing for about a week

The new iPhone 4 I've been testing for about a week and a half - along with the major refresh of the mobile operating system software at the core of recent models - demonstrates again why Apple's handset is the one to beat, even as it faces fierce competition from phones based on Google's Android platform, among others.

Apple announced the iPhone 4 at its Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month. After the customary hype that followed, iPhone 4 will hit stores Thursday morning, though some customers who have ordered the device will receive them earlier. Judging by 600,000 early orders, iPhone 4 is already a runaway hit.

Buyers won't be disappointed. The killer feature is what Apple calls FaceTime video chat. The promise that you and the person you're talking to on a phone can gaze into each other's eyes dates back to when LBJ occupied the White House. No one has really nailed video calling through the years the way Apple has nailed it here, with certain limitations. FaceTime is as simple as making a regular call. To help to accomplish this neat stunt, iPhone 4 adds a front-facing camera that complements the more traditional, and improved, camera on back.

There are other iPhone 4 features worth crowing about: high-definition video recording, super-crisp display, a handsome and thin stainless steel and glass design. Apple says the glass is chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic. To reinforce the point, an Apple executive dropped it in front of me. The phone was undamaged. Inside is an A4 processor, the power-efficient chip used in the iPad.

The latest mobile operating system

As part of the latest mobile operating system, what Apple calls iOS 4, you get bolstered e-mail features, a better way of organizing apps, search suggestions in mobile Safari, and multitasking. IOS 4 is compatible with the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G, though not all features work across all the devices.

Multitasking, which lets you run more than one application at a time, is a catch-up feature that works on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS only. Apple claims to have come up with a multitasking approach that avoids draining the battery or system resources.

Critics are left with reasons to whine. Apple's public dissing of Adobe Flash means you'll still come upon Web video sites that don't make nice with the iPhone. I had a few dropped calls. The battery still isn't user-replaceable, and there's no slot for expanding memory.

The caveats

Now the caveats: Both you and the person you're talking to need iPhone 4s, though Apple hopes to make FaceTime a standard that would permit video calling across numerous devices.

Both parties need to be connected to Wi-Fi. FaceTime doesn't work over AT&T's cellular network, even though you typically make the initial call through AT&T. It takes a few seconds once you tap the FaceTime button for AT&T to hand the call over to the FaceTime application. After it does, you're no longer exhausting any of your AT&T cellular minutes. Side benefit: Besides video, you get far better audio quality. That said, the voice quality on regular AT&T calls wasn't bad, aided by a second microphone that helps suppress background noises.

The iPhone 4 sports a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with a 5x digital zoom and - first for an iPhone - an LED flash. I took several decent pictures in low light but had some grainy results, too. It's not a great camera for capturing fast-moving action. Close-ups taken with the 5x digital zoom, which is an iOS 4 addition, were so-so.

As before, pictures taken with the iPhone camera are “geotagged” with the location of where they were shot. But now as part of iOS 4, the iPhone plots these on a map inside the Photos app via a feature called Places.

The iPhone with iPhoto on a Mac

If you sync the iPhone with iPhoto on a Mac, you can also take advantage of a Faces feature that lets you look at all the pictures that have a particular person in them.

The iPhone 4 can also take high-definition video footage, up to what techies refer to as 720p. And the tap-to-focus feature, previously used on the 3GS for still images, can also be employed when you're capturing video. You tap the screen in the area you want the iPhone to focus on. As on the 3GS, you can trim video right from the device.

I sampled Apple's $4.99 version of iMovie for the iPhone, which lets you add themes, music, audio and transitions to your video. I found it a little clumsy to use, however, and for some reason the app misidentified the location where certain footage was shot.

Apple introduced iBooks with the iPad. It's brought the app and its virtual iBookstore to the iPhone through iOS 4. You'll have to download the free app from the App Store. Books you buy in the iBookstore land on a handsome depiction of a wooden bookshelf; Apple says more than 60,000 books are available. You can change pages by tapping a page or dragging the upper right or bottom right edges of a page; pages curl like a real book. You can sync bookmarks, notes and your place in a book with your copies of the book on an iPad.

You can change fonts and type size, but because of the iPhone's far smaller display compared with the iPad (3.5 inches vs. 9.7 inches), you don't get the same dramatic impact - though on the iPhone 4 especially, the text is supercrisp and sharp through what Apple calls Retina Display technology. One other difference: When you turn the iPhone to landscape, you don't get the same two-page view you get reading an iBook on the iPad.

IPhone 4 or 3GS to take advantage of multitasking

You'll need an iPhone 4 or 3GS to take advantage of multitasking. Older iPhones don't have the resources to pull it off. The beauty of multitasking is that you don't have to shut down an app when you want to launch another. Third party apps can run in the background.

Audio apps such as Pandora continue to play music while you surf or check e-mail. Navigation apps continue to update your location while you listen to music. You'll also be able to receive calls from VoIP providers such as Skype, even when the app isn't open. Previously, only Apple's own programs, notably iTunes, could multitask on the iPhone.

That said, app developers have to tweak their software before you can multitask on the iPhone and most, including Skype, haven't done so yet. Still, I successfully tested multitasking with apps such as Pandora, Evernote and Dropbox.

You can summon the iPhone's new multitasking interface when you double-click the Home button. A tray, or shelf, appears with icons for all the most recently used apps, making it a cinch to switch among them. Apps pick up where you left off. Apple preserves battery life by temporarily freezing the apps that aren't in use, though they can be brought back to life quite quickly.

To be sure, multitasking on the iPhone isn't like multitasking on a PC or Mac. Among other things, you can't display more than one app at a time in different windows on the screen.

The battery life on the iPhone 4

Apple improved the battery life on the iPhone 4. It uses a larger battery, for one thing. Still, pounding it pretty hard, I sometimes reached low-battery warnings late in the day, so having chargers where you work as well as where you live isn't a bad idea.

As with previous iPhones, the latest model breaks new ground. FaceTime video calling on the iPhone 4 is one of those cool “seeing is believing” features, and it arrives on top of several across-the-board enhancements. And iOS 4 is a mostly terrific software upgrade.

Con. Battery can't be removed. Memory can't be expanded. No support for Adobe Flash video sites. For FaceTime to work, both parties need to be using the new iPhone and have Wi-Fi access. Occasional dropped calls.

First-time iPhone buyers in the United States or those eligible for an upgrade - AT&T has relaxed upgrade requirements - pay $199 for a 16-gigabyte iPhone 4 or $299 for 32 GB. Both come in white or black, and you'll have to sign up for a two-year contract with AT&T. Apple is also selling an 8-GB version of the previous model, the iPhone 3GS, for $99 with a two-year AT&T contract.

A $25, 2-GB monthly plan would let you handle about 10,000 e-mails sans attachments, plus 1,500 with attachments, 4,000 Web pages, 500 uploaded photos and 200 minutes of streaming video. AT&T claims 98 percent of smartphone users use less than 2 GB a month on average.

Extra $20 monthly buys tethering

An extra $20 monthly buys tethering, or the ability to use the iPhone as a broadband modem for laptops, netbooks and other devices. Regrettable exception: You can't use the iPhone as a modem for an iPad.

Meanwhile, AT&T has said that while it's on track to deliver phones to buyers who ordered the device on June 15, others will now have to wait until June 29, when the phones hit AT&T retail stores and online outlets. For information on other retailers, including Best Buy, RadioShack and Walmart, check with your local store.