So I’ve had my iPhone4 for a day, up from a 3G, and here’s my first impressions :

1. Speed

What I was waiting for, it’s super-fast compared to my 3G. Worth the money just for that.

2. Screen

Is kind of unbelievable. It looks like the screen is right on the glass, everything looks crazy-good and text is just awesome.

3. Camera

Is a major improvement. The 3GS was also a big improvement over the 3G though, too. I know it’s a phone but it’s nice to have a camera in your pocket all the time, and the camera on my 3G was just to big of a piece of crap to be worth trying to capture half the shots I wanted. HD video is also really good, especially in good lighting. Definitely nice to have.

4. The Handset Itself

The phone itself is pretty sweet, high-quality looking and feeling, feels really thin to hold. I did like the way my old phone felt in my hand, but this is neat because it’s new. 

5. Antennagate

No issues yet. I can pretty easily get mine to lose 1-2 bars by holding it “wrong”. Had it down to one bar and tested data speed on 3G and it was fine, so I dunno. Next call I make that’s not work-related I’m going to try to get it back to one bar and see how it goes, probably fine.

6. Battery

Battery life is noticeably better, even though I thought it was fine before (got a full day out of it with 6 hours usage). Used the phone all day including usual talk time and it’s still over half charged.

Nothing new really, it’s a pretty awesome phone.

Entry to a Rogers contest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfeBfba0rcA.

Holy eff. Is this for real? Want.

I downloaded a fair number of iPhone apps this year, but only a handful stood the test of time. Here are the apps that are still on my phone (in no particular order):

WeatherEye
I’ve always been a proponent of “you can’t predict the weather” but when you need to try, this app is much better than the default.

Analytics
The only app that comes close to providing your Google Analytics data on an iPhone. It costs me $6 but it’s worth it for the analytics geeks like me out there.

Facebook
I don’t use Facebook as much as I probably should (part of the reason I got this) but this app is so well designed it could probably run a standalone mobile Facebook device.

Tweetie (2)
Tweetie gets great reviews from all over. TweetDeck was my choice for a long time but Tweetie is much faster and a has a really sweet UI (overall it was the speed that sold me, though. TweetDeck on iPhone is just too clunky).

Evernote
I started using Evernote on my laptop to bring some order to my notes that I was jotting down in TextEdit. Now I’ve got all my notes on my phone, and anything I note (or say) is synced on my laptop.

PocketGuitar
The first app I downloaded and probably the coolest thing ever to be created in the history of existence.

Pianist
A pianist I am not, but this app is pretty fun to play with.

Ocarina
It was just too cool to resist for 99 cents, and remains a fun showoff app.

Shazam
This might be the second app I downloaded, one of the best ever. It tells you the song that’s playing after listening for 12 seconds and get’s it right about 97.4% of the time I use it.

Tumblr
I just got into Tumblr and their app is pretty good too, simple and fun to use like Tumblr.

Wordpress
For blogging on the go, although I’ve really only used it to take some notes and fix a spelling mistake, it’s a well-designed app for anyone that has a Wordpress blog.

Remote
More cool than useful in everyday life, it’s worth having on hand and great for parties.

BeejiveIM
Another pricey app ($5 on sale :O), but probably the best IM app. eBuddy was a close second but the Beejive’s UI and lack of crappy MSN personal message make it worth buying. It actually keeps you signed in when you quit, too (most of the time) with push notifications of messages.

Skype
With dropped calls and at times questionable quality, for just $3 a month I can make long distance calls anywhere in Canada while I’m on WiFi. Apparently you can mask 3G as WiFi with a jailbroken phone and I actually considered doing it, but still haven’ bothered.

Dropbox
I’ve found Dropbox the best free service yet to store files online and access them on computers kinda thing, so I keep some pics and work-related docs in there.

CBC Radio
Stream it (mainly Radio 3) whenever I get tired of my playlist (although streaming over 3G kills your battery pretty fast).

iCoaster
I made this and it’s not really an app, but a mobile website cleverly disguised as an app if you add it to your homescreen. So yeah. You should get it.

ICHC (I Can Has Cheezburger)
What can I say? lolcats.

Lightsaber
Another one of the first apps I downloaded. Haven’t used it in months but I keep it around…just in case.

Boxcar
Sends push notifications for popular services like Twitter and Facebook. I use it for Twitter @replies and DMs, quite handy. Thanks to Emma for showing me this one.

And finally, the games. Haven’t played games on my iPhone since my last plane trip, but I keep a bunch (paid and free) just in case I want to mindlessly kill some time, like: Line Rider, South Park Imaginationland, TanZen, Brain Toot, and the newly acquired and fairly difficult Font Game.

Bonus Content! Best Kept Secret
An app that comes on your iPhone that’s better than you may think? iTunes. Much more than a place to buy stuff like I assumed at first, you can stream podcasts like The Onion and TED Talks right in the app.

In July our friend Dale Zak organized the iPhone Hackathon for Chairty at the Hub, an event to bring together a team to ponder some iPhone app ideas, pick some to build and sell…