My 3G would last over 48 hours with aprox 30 mins calls, checking emails, light browsing and ocassional app use. My 2 month old iP4 barely lasts 36 hours.
I just know i use up less battery with my usual daily use on my 4 than my 3G. Most of my use though is browsing the web (vs. phone calls, I very rarely use the actual phone part).
With regard to the 'popular' comment, I always prefer gadgets when not many other people have them.
That's fine and dandy when they are a gadget that is not designed to install and run programs (and just has one use that it was made for). Not so fine and dandy when they are more like a mini computer where the actual functionality is the stuff you install on it. What good is a mac for example if there are no programs you can run on it?
In addition, as far as the iPhone is concerned, Apple as a company have changed (for the worse) with both being cocky over the death-grip issue, and this integrated sim-card proposal, which will suck for the customer. Just my opinion
I think their hardware quality has gone downhill (Though my basis of comparison is my two laptops I have had from them in the past three years vs. desktops so maybe I'm being a bit unfair. I'm getting the impression laptops in general don't tend to fair as well as desktops).
But honestly, I remember back when I had my performa, I never really saw them as having good customer service (quite the opposite but I barely had to use it, I usually just fuxored with my own computer and fixed it myself. But I was unimpressed the one time I did try to use it). That seemed to be a reputation they gained around 2000?
I have always liked the Macintosh computer but I can say I can't honestly say I've always liked Apple (fact for a while in the 90's I was ticked at htem for not marketing better and killing my favorite computer. I mean there was very little made for it and who is going to buy a computer that doesn't do much no matter how nice it is). Shoot, I have an iphone and love it now, but when it first came out I was making fun of it and thinking Apple should stick to computers. In fact I'd still be very pissed if Apple did abandon the Mac cause that's still the product I am dedicated to but I'll give hte ipod/iphone props cause it has seemed to bring more people into trying out Macs (and it seems you can find a lot more stuff for hte mac these days). So even if I didn't have an iphone or ipod, at this point I'm appreciative that they did go into different markets cause it seems to have brought more people to Macs. And more people = more software = computer is more flexible and powerful cause it can do more.
As for the antenna thing, honestly, I do think they handled it wrong from a marketing standpoint. What they really shoudl have done is just put it in the instruction manual to not hold it there (one of my Nokia phones actually had that in its instruction manual not to hold the phone at a certain place so it really is not unheard of for a cellphone to have certain spots that should not be held). Make it that is how it is supposed to be operated. Rather than pretend it didn't exist and make it look like a bug. It honestly really isn't that big of an issue. People are making it far more of a problem than it really is. But I honestly think it's cause of how Apple decided to handle it.
tattooed on my forehead...