At a recent Apple town hall meeting Steve Jobs proclaimed something to the effect of Google’s don’t be evil mantra is full of crap. This is old news to be sure, but really? Steve-O, you’re your own biggest fan boy and it’s starting to tick me off. Now, kudos to your marketing department, no one can argue with your “collective” of patrons, but really, REALLY – enough already. Maybe next year you can just stand on a stage patting your back, or if you’re flexible enough you can always just bend over and … never mind, lets keep this PG-13 but I’m sure you know where I’m going with that.

Now what has me in such an up-roar? The iphone 4. My love for Google’s Android platform has been well documented in my twitter stream, as has my disgust with this i “phone”. In an ever “Apple forgiving” interactive media (for reasons I just can’t comprehend) I need to set the record straight. I need to stand against one phone, one carrier, one choice, one man, for the love of all things technological, to keep information free and to stick up for my not so in-the-know Apple buying friends.

Apple and AT&T have smelled the statistics, opened up a can of desperation and have gone negative.

When Steve-O introduced the iphone 4 in early June people started drooling. Bright eyed developers, fanboys and anyone who already owned a set of white headphones “needed” the iphone 4. After all, with the introduction of video chat, multi-tasking, a unified inbox and Microsoft’s bing.com who wouldn’t want an iphone 4? Well, anyone who has already moved on, who has gotten so sick of shoddy call reception and slow data speeds, or anyone who grew tired of their locked down phone, and who could blame them? With strong competition arising from Google’s Android platform, Microsoft’s new Windows Mobile 7, and pack leading BlackBerry by Research In Motion the mobile space is becoming reminiscent of the early 2000s.

The writing has been on the wall since the start of 2010 when Android was activating a measly 60,000 devices a day to 100,000 in May and now currently 160,000+ devices a day. Let me say that again, 160,000 new Google powered Android devices are being activated EVERY DAY, across multiple carriers and a slew of devices.

So while the iphone 4 has all these “new” features and sold over 1.5 million at it’s launch, I submit to you, the proverbial sky is falling on Apple. No, don’t tell me to put down whatever I’m smoking, hear me out first.

In early 2010 Android became the number two mobile operating system, sliding in behind BlackBerry and pushing Apple to third. But you’re thinking “but you just said they sold 1.5 million at launch” – so now, surely Android must of slipped back in to third right? No. No because 4 out of every 5 people who have purchased an iphone 4 were already iphone users. (Around 77%) So, folks are shelling out full retail price for these iphones? That has to be pricey! Well, not really…

For some reason that money hungry, lousy signal toting cellular network AT&T has given anyone with an upgrade date in 2010 eligibility to get upgrade pricing on any iphone model before their renewal date. Trust me, AT&T is not the kind of company to give something away for nothing. Just recently they even took away their unlimited data plan. So while Apple & AT&T push the data-intensive iphone you better keep an eye on your data usage! (at $10 per 1GB after 2GB who wouldn’t?)

But really, why would a company that’s built on squeezing every red cent from their customers just start subsidizing cell phones from Apple? Desperation.

The writing is on the wall, despite the iphone’s “new” set of features, (all of which exists on more powerful devices on more cost effective cellular carriers) AT&T knows “the Android army” is here and is growing on a daily basis. What better way to lock in people while you can? After all, if you could spend $200 – $300 once to secure 24 months of per-line cell phone revenue wouldn’t you? I would, sure it’s good business, but read between the lines, when you’re buying an iphone you’re purchasing an already out-dated device and AT&T and Apple are so desperate for your money they will “give” you a free upgrade, well free as a two year contract with a sub standard carrier goes. Of course you can break your contract, just pay their newly higher early termination fee (from $175 to $325).

A quick little recap just before we take a more in-depth look at the iphone’s 4 features: AT&T will freely lock you in to a new two year agreement with a limited data plan of up to 2GB a month, with each additional GB costing $10. With math like that, how could they not offer upgrade pricing?

The iphone 4…

Video Chat! – Really? – Awesome. You mean I can pickup my iphone and video chat to anyone who has a display, while I’m on the go? Well no, not really. FaceTime (Apple’s video chat) only works over Wifi (would you trust that much data to AT&T’s 3G network, with a 2GB limit how could you?) and only works with other people using FaceTime. Yes, Jobs said this would be an “open standard” and I’m thinking working only on Wifi and only with other iphone users seems about as open as a porn app in the app store, or for that matter anything exercising their more than PG-13 use of the first amendment. For comparison Sprint’s HTC Evo has a higher quality (1.3MP) front facing quality and a variety of video chat apps that work over 3G, 4G or Wifi. Sprint has unlimited data so you can feel free to enjoy this and not worry about the arrival of your monthly bill.

Multi-tasking, finally in the year of our lord two-thousand and ten Apple finally unleashes their excuse for multi-tasking. Did you know that multi-tasking has to be coded in to the app by each developer? Natively iOS 4 doesn’t support multi-tasking, it supports an app’s ability to keep running and another app to interface with the OS which in turns controls another app. This isn’t multi-tasking, it’s a cheap work around that will in time just leave people wishing for something faster to control.

Wait, stop the press, what about phone calls? I’m going to finish up here bringing the iphone back to basics, lets take a look at it’s ability to make and receive phone calls. Well, how do you like these apples, if you hold the phone, well, like a phone, you can kill it’s reception and drop your call. Let me repeat that, if you pick up the iphone 4 and hold that brilliant outside the phone antenna in the palm of your hand next to your head, you will not have a signal. Not a voice signal, not a data signal, you will though be holding up the equivalent of an ipod touch next to your face.

Of course a company like Apple, would surely have a fix in the works, well Steve Jobs himself replied with the fix in no time at all: “Just avoid holding it in that way”. Do you really think throughout all the testing and research that went in to this device over at Apple, that no one picked up this phone and lost their signal? Was it too late to alter production? Probably not from an Apple only point of view, but with Android 2.2 (FroYo) knocking down the door and a ton of other Android devices slated for release this summer and next holiday season, then yes, way too late.