iphone 4 problems

While a weirdly placed casing antenna and a coating on the screen have caused reception and screen image issues, privacy problems not widely reported could give iPhone 4 buyers the most concern.

Apple’s new FaceTime feature on the iPhone 4 allows you to make a video call to someone else who can see your image and vice versa. It’s a real advance in communications, but with it comes a huge privacy problem.


First, teens can use it to send what this space is the first to name as a “sexvid” and lead to practices of “sexviding”, where a person sends a sexual FaceTime video call to someone else. Second, the FaceTime communications are not secure, so anyone can pick up your FaceTime call, video and all, without your knowing it.

Other reported iPhone 4 problems are of the one-off type. They include screens shipping with discoloration, including yellowing in the bottom right corner and fragility. The iPhone has already been scratched by at least one user, and another user says s/he dropped an iPhone from a foot up and the glass back of the phone shattered.

Apple will likely sell 1+ million units today, so the scratched, broken, and yellow phones don’t seem much of a concern (although any other company would be catching hell for them). The reception problem, however, could be a big issue.
Michael Gartenberg, a mobile analyst with The Altimeter Group, said that he believed that the reports were part of an Internet-driven network effect where users blamed poor signal reception on the external antenna. “We have to assume what we’re seeing is anecdotal,” he said.