By Burton Craig

I remember standing in line for the first iPhones that came out. I went to the Apple store in Valley Fair around 9:00 at night, walk into the store and was out with two iPhones in 10 minutes – not bad after hearing about long lines. When I got the phones home and turned them on I knew I was looking at something special – until I made that first phone call.

It dropped.

Now I had been with Sprint for a number of years before that and even spent some time with Verizon. I was used to dropped calls every once in a while. I even knew where the dead spots were so I could inform the person on the other line that were were about to get dropped. I wasn’t too worried about it because I knew that AT&T service wasn’t the best in my area. I figured I could live with it because of all the other cool, and even useful, features the iPhone has.

The next morning on the way to work I was a tech support call – dropped. I was talking to my Mom – dropped. I was just sitting in my office – dropped. I didn’t like what I was experiencing. The rest of the phone was great – especially on WiFi.

The rest of the story pretty much goes the same. Make a call, talk for a couple of minutes, get dropped. From the initial iPhone to the 3G to the 3GS. I lived with it because of the iPhone ease of use, quality of applications and I could actually use the Internet while I was on a call – until that call dropped.

Finally the iPhone4 arrived with a new antennae, new processor and new OS.I got my on the first day – no standing in line thanks to AT&T. The upgrade from my old iPhone 3GS was smooth as silk though I tend to not upgrade and just start fresh. I don’t need to retain all my high scores and text messages.

In anticipation I started making phone calls and to my dismay I kept getting dropped calls. So many that I thought my iPhone4 was a defective. Off to the Apple store where the guys at the Genius Bar gave it the once over. According to the diagnostics program they found lots of dropped calls. They suggested the I rest my iPhone back to factory settings and see how that worked. I knew it wouldn’t but I did and the dropped calls continued as before. By my estimates I seemed to drop 2 out of every 5 calls. I have a standard apology for when this happens, “I’m sorry I have an iPhone.” It’s funny that the responses I usually get is, “Oh”, “Yes been there”, “I understand your plight”, and other along that line.

I still love the iPhone because of its design, interface, apps, and great camera. At Boy Scout camp this summer I took pictures with my iPhone4 and my Canon DSLR and I was very impressed with the quality of pictures the iPhone4 took (and this was before HDR). The best part was that with the iPhone I could sent them back home immediately to let everyone see the great time we were having at camp. Unfortunately I have to be able to make and receive calls and have them last for more that a couple of minutes.

So where do I go from here…

Well my wife has had an HTC Android for for about a year know. With the new HTC Evo and Samsung Epic, there are finally phones that can make parting with the iPhone less painful. I just a change to use both phones side-by-side for a couple of day and have placed an order for the Epic (stay tuned for another post about that). I’ll let you know how that goes. The iPhone will be going on Craig’s List as soon as the Epic arrives. I have no doubt that it will see quickly.

So good-by iPhone. It’s been great and maybe we will join up again someday.