@Evytyn: You might want to get that checked out. Walt Mossberg praised the iPhone 4 for its call clarity especially in his car, so it sounds like there might be something amiss in your situation...

@Himiko: Your question wasn't stupid, and yes, your memory serves you well. While other models did have a couple issues, this is the first iPhone model to be plagued with so many...

I bet Apple's success is as much to blame here. I'm sure tons of manufacturers lobbied just to get a word with them on how they could new screens, bodies, etc. I mean, I've heard stories of people pitching a new glue (that makes the yellow apparently), and I wonder who's idea was for the glass body, really. Could…

@Robert Carrillo: You can't be serious, right?

@Weaksauce: I'm sorry, but putting glass on the back to 'go green' is a lame excuse... and who's the say the manufacturing of this glass, with its tempering, painting actually does more harm to the environment than good? And if 'green' was in fact the reason they went with glass, I'm sure there a many many more ways…

I guess this was the "magical" part of the iPhone 4.

Great article!

@Brian Alexander: But that's just it... in real-world testing, where the rubber really met the road, they had to conceal the device. Doing so, may have done more harm than good. If they had not used the case, could they have found the issue before launch? And labs are horrible places to do real-world testing...

@newman001: Same here! ha!

Sheesh, a lot of Giz-bashing here in the comments today... I think this article is spot on! If Apple wants to prance onto the stage with words like "magical" and "revolutionary" to describe its products and then they fail miserably on delivering that experience, why not call them out on it?

@Dwindle: Yes it is true. I mean look at corporations that help innovate the 'net. They are all turning to tracking and selling information to would-be marketers. Apple, Microsoft, and Google (even Facebook) have all been doing this for quite some time.

This is actually pretty genius... I mean they're already pals with China, and right next door, no less. All they'd need are some pretty good designers and then 'monkey-see-monkey-do' and make all the Chinese build their creations for cheaper (no pricey boat trip needed).

@WalnutSoap: *facepalm* seriously, you used that word? He may be a douche, but not a tool... No, the tools are all these fools buying all the iCrap...

@zeroprime: Can we say 'halo effect'? I hate it, really - once Apple does something, it's the friggin' talk of the town!

@Dwindle: then you'd better just get off the internet now, 'cause that's where everything is heading - seriously...

@SKiTz: Agreed! I just jumped ship to Android and I just can't say enough about this platform! It's got so much potential and has so much talented developers boggling my mind daily!

@bhaald: Yap - there's no such thing as "fragile" at UPS - we drop kick those suckers! Ha!

@adamvacancy: really? I wasn't aware the Droid had a dense pixel ratio? I'm no iFanboi in the slightest (EVO 4G here) but I just didn't know the Droid had dense pixelation before...

HOLY SHNIKEES!! I downloaded both LauncherPro and ADW.Launcher onto my HTC EVO 4G and it's like having 3 different phones in my pocket, each with differing UI's! HTC's Widgets won't work with these launchers, but that's fine 'cause they are resource hogs anyways...

Yet another proprietary video-chat format that is fragmenting the userbase... seriously, they need to pick a standard and stick to it. Fring says it's working with other video-chat formats (Google Talk, AIM, Yahoo IM, to name a few) to get licensing, but that's the thing - this is insane! And now here comes Apple…