My iPhone 4 was like the Nokia of iPhones. Mine lasted forever and I think it was my longest lasting one. I had it for 5 years, I knew people who had it until 3G was being phased out and they had to switch.
I always use a case on every phone and never had a single issue with the 4.
SlightlyLeftPad 6 hours ago [-]
iPhone 13 pro almost exactly 5 years old. Had the battery replaced once under warranty. I feel like all iphones these days are built like tanks. The waterproofing helps a ton.
setopt 6 hours ago [-]
I had my iPhone XR (bought 2019) until last year. At that point an upgrade made it so slow it was barely usable, while the lack of further updates made it impossible to install or upgrade apps after the device and OS went EOL.
sitzkrieg 4 hours ago [-]
the xr performance/hardware is still very fine when you look at it on paper, very annoying forced obsolescence for no actual reason
Insanity 6 hours ago [-]
I'm still running it with the stock battery. This thing will probably last a few more generations at this rate.
6 hours ago [-]
stouset 6 hours ago [-]
I loved watching this, and it really cements for me how out of touch with reality the common antennagate narrative was.
Everything about this Q&A was thoughtful, well-meaning, and heavily considered. And it's true: while the iPhone 4 had ways it could be better, it wasn't materially worse than any of the other phones of its era. A recall would have been ridiculous because that would have required them to have a fix for something the industry at large hadn't yet solved.
And they were extremely measured in their response. If you're unhappy with your cell reception, they were happy to give you a case to improve the situation, no questions asked. If you still weren't happy, they had (and had had, and continue to have) one of the best return policies in the industry. They wanted to you to be happy with your purchase, and if you weren't, they wanted you to be able to get a phone you would be happy with.
Steve Jobs may have been a terrible person in many ways, but one of the good things about him absolutely was his unfailing commitment to his customers.
jjallen 6 hours ago [-]
Isn't their return policy duration 2 weeks? How is that one of the best return policies in the industry? Nearly every other retailer allows 30 days...
JMiao 7 hours ago [-]
primordial social media
nozzlegear 8 hours ago [-]
It's fascinating how Jobs isn't afraid to pause and wait while he thinks about his answer (07:00, 20:00). He doesn't have that habit most have of babbling to fill dead air. It makes him sound a lot more authentic/less rehearsed.
vjvjvjvjghv 6 hours ago [-]
The pause is probably rehearsed. I don't think anything Jobs did in public wasn't calculated.
mingus88 5 hours ago [-]
Of course he rehearsed every keynote. You would be a fool to do any performance without some kind of rehearsal, unless it’s improv.
You can search YouTube for Steve Jobs demo fail for plenty of examples of it not going smoothly. He practiced but he still did live demos and had plenty of opportunities to mess up
latexr 5 hours ago [-]
If this was a presentation, sure, but here he’s answering questions in a room full of journalists, surrounded by other Apple employees with specialised knowledge. It seems likely he really was pondering the right words to answer.
lapcat 7 hours ago [-]
The pause may have been rehearsed, though.
An anecdote from the book "Steve Jobs in Exile" I just read: at the beginning of one product announcement, Jobs told the audience that he was a little nervous, but his coworkers said that he was never nervous for keynotes. It was pure manipulation.
He doesn't actually answer the question until over 25 seconds have passed!
He takes a sip of water, sits in silence, the crowd starts heckling. Jobs gives a small quip to buy time. Sits in silence again. It's an eternity on stage.
There were what I would graciously call zealots who were adamant Apple had to build on OpenDoc to break Microsoft’s nascent monopoly with Office. When Jobs adequately cancelled all efforts on OpenDoc under the very correct vision that you can’t ship OpenDoc in a shrink wrap package, those zealots were furious.
pazimzadeh 4 hours ago [-]
I'm assuming the coworkers were talking about the practice talk..why would you be nervous without an audience?
lapcat 1 hours ago [-]
I don't understand your question.
You wouldn't be nervous without an audience, so why would the coworkers be talking about the practice talk and not the real talk?
pazimzadeh 1 hours ago [-]
I assume the coworkers were talking about the practice talks, since we are as good judges of the real talks as the coworkers are, the talks being publicly available.
Or are you saying that they claimed he was nervous before the talks or backstage, but that the nerves went away once he stepped onstage? If so, why would he need to manipulate his coworkers into thinking he's nervous?
Or are you saying that he was nervous during the talks in a way that couldn't be captured by the cameras or the audience? In which case again - manipulation wouldn't have worked.
Or am I missing something?
EDIT: It seems I misread the original comment - he actually told the audience he was nervous. I'd love to know which product announcement that was and see it for myself. I'm still not sure how a coworker would be able to know what he was feeling any better than the audience did.
lapcat 17 minutes ago [-]
> It seems I misread the original comment - he actually told the audience he was nervous.
Correct.
> I'd love to know which product announcement that was and see it for myself.
Some NeXT computer.
> I'm still not sure how a coworker would be able to know what he was feeling any better than the audience did.
Because his coworkers had known him for years, worked through many product announcements with him, and the audience did not?
The whole book "Steve Jobs in Exile" was basically the reminiscences of his coworkers.
pazimzadeh 4 minutes ago [-]
> > I'm still not sure how a coworker would be able to know what he was feeling any better than the audience did.
> Because his coworkers had known him for years, worked through many product announcements with him, and the audience did not?
I'm skeptical. There are video interviews from that era (I think) where he appears very nervous on camera, asking repeatedly if "we're on", self-interrupting and asking for a second try to attempt an answer, taking lots of sips of water, etc. I'd have to try to find the video.
Sounds like an interesting book though, I'll check it out.
asadm 6 hours ago [-]
I wouldn't count it as manipulation, it can be a good way to connect/relate with audience beforehand. Similar to making a joke?
SequoiaHope 6 hours ago [-]
One might say showmanship.
Obviously lying to people you know is generally unhealthy but when you are putting on a performance to an audience I don’t judge so harshly. Of course I imagine he did both.
nozzlegear 6 hours ago [-]
I'm sure the pause is something he rehearsed at some point, but I've watched a few of his Q&As where he's done it. If I recall, he was even doing it in the 90s (the Q&A I'm thinking of is the one where he picks up a chair and pretends to use it as a shield). So while I'm sure it was something he originally rehearsed, it undoubtedly just became a habit of his over time.
One of the issues with the iPhone 4 was that holding it in your left hand caused problems for the antenna. The iPhone Duo seems to indicate that Apple still don't actually believe that left handed people exists.
Rendered at 00:04:57 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
I always use a case on every phone and never had a single issue with the 4.
Everything about this Q&A was thoughtful, well-meaning, and heavily considered. And it's true: while the iPhone 4 had ways it could be better, it wasn't materially worse than any of the other phones of its era. A recall would have been ridiculous because that would have required them to have a fix for something the industry at large hadn't yet solved.
And they were extremely measured in their response. If you're unhappy with your cell reception, they were happy to give you a case to improve the situation, no questions asked. If you still weren't happy, they had (and had had, and continue to have) one of the best return policies in the industry. They wanted to you to be happy with your purchase, and if you weren't, they wanted you to be able to get a phone you would be happy with.
Steve Jobs may have been a terrible person in many ways, but one of the good things about him absolutely was his unfailing commitment to his customers.
You can search YouTube for Steve Jobs demo fail for plenty of examples of it not going smoothly. He practiced but he still did live demos and had plenty of opportunities to mess up
An anecdote from the book "Steve Jobs in Exile" I just read: at the beginning of one product announcement, Jobs told the audience that he was a little nervous, but his coworkers said that he was never nervous for keynotes. It was pure manipulation.
He doesn't actually answer the question until over 25 seconds have passed!
He takes a sip of water, sits in silence, the crowd starts heckling. Jobs gives a small quip to buy time. Sits in silence again. It's an eternity on stage.
You wouldn't be nervous without an audience, so why would the coworkers be talking about the practice talk and not the real talk?
Or are you saying that they claimed he was nervous before the talks or backstage, but that the nerves went away once he stepped onstage? If so, why would he need to manipulate his coworkers into thinking he's nervous?
Or are you saying that he was nervous during the talks in a way that couldn't be captured by the cameras or the audience? In which case again - manipulation wouldn't have worked.
Or am I missing something?
EDIT: It seems I misread the original comment - he actually told the audience he was nervous. I'd love to know which product announcement that was and see it for myself. I'm still not sure how a coworker would be able to know what he was feeling any better than the audience did.
Correct.
> I'd love to know which product announcement that was and see it for myself.
Some NeXT computer.
> I'm still not sure how a coworker would be able to know what he was feeling any better than the audience did.
Because his coworkers had known him for years, worked through many product announcements with him, and the audience did not?
The whole book "Steve Jobs in Exile" was basically the reminiscences of his coworkers.
> Because his coworkers had known him for years, worked through many product announcements with him, and the audience did not?
I'm skeptical. There are video interviews from that era (I think) where he appears very nervous on camera, asking repeatedly if "we're on", self-interrupting and asking for a second try to attempt an answer, taking lots of sips of water, etc. I'd have to try to find the video.
Sounds like an interesting book though, I'll check it out.
Obviously lying to people you know is generally unhealthy but when you are putting on a performance to an audience I don’t judge so harshly. Of course I imagine he did both.
Edit: what a weird thing to downvote lol
The iPhone 4 'Antennagate' Press Conference Q&A
https://daringfireball.net/2026/09/iphone_4_antennagate_q_an... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49829984)