I got my iPhone 4 on June 30th, six weeks ago. I bought it from an Italian eBay seller who purchased two units in Montpellier (France) and decided to re-sell them at a considerably higher price on eBay. Looking back, I know I did the right thing: Apple sent a very few units for the Italian launch on July 30th, and even if I could manage to grab one on that day I would have missed 30 days of intensive usage and enjoyment. In those 30 days I had the chance to test the Retina Display, the antenna, FaceTime, the updated apps. It was worth it.

Now, it’s been six weeks with iPhone 4. Does it change everything?

Two years ago I bought the original iPhone and loved it. Then, last year I bought an iPhone 3GS and loved it even more. But with the iPhone 4, the leap forward has been way greater and better than the previous upgrades. Whether you’re an iPhone user or not, owning an iPhone 4 is a unique experience. I guess you know this by now, but let’s look back.

The antenna, I don’t really want to talk about it any longer. I did suffer sporadical Death Grip issues, but nothing that affected normal daily usage. I made it very clear before. Poor Papermaster boy was axed, I’m sorry for him. But it’s time to move on.

In the past weeks I went at the camping I spend most of my summer vacations every year since I was 6. I used to go with my family, now I go with my friends and girlfriend. This year I brought my Macbook, iPad and iPhone 4 with me. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to work from there (where there’s no internet access) so I also bought a mobile internet key from 3 Italia. It’s a HSPA device which costed me 120 Euros, but it was worth it: I had Internet (real Internet) at the camping. Oh, in case you’re wondering: it’s not the kind of camping you think. There are no tents, we have wooden houses: I managed to set up a pretty decent “summer office”.

So I had my Macbook hooked up to that HSPA device, and with Sharing turned on in OS X preferences I could distribute the connection across the iPad, iPhone and my girlfriend’s Macbook. But here comes the cool part: I never used that shared wireless connection with my iPhone. You need some background on this, though. The camping is a quarter mile away from the beach, and it takes 10 minutes to get there. At the beach there’s crappy 3G signal, but it gets slightly better if you sit down at the bar - 30 meters away from the beach. So, ever since I bought the iPhone in 2008 I knew that using it at the beach was impossible - I only could get 1/ 2 bars at the bar. Not good. But anyway, I brought the iPhone 4 so I could see whether the superior antenna design was actually that superior.

It is. I get 2 bars at the beach (like, in the water) and 4 bars at the bar. My iPhone 3GS (which is now used by my girlfriend) still gets the crappy signal. Now explain this, Gizmodo.

The improved connection performances allowed to work from the beach, and considering that we spent most of our time there (we had lunch there, almost every day) you can guess that it was a huge advantage from me. Remember all those posts last week, and three weeks ago? They were written and tweeted from there. The images were uploaded using iTeleport which connected to my Macbook that was at the camping hooked up to the HSPA key. Sorry if I call this “huge”. Before the iPhone 4 this was impossible.

I’m completely addicted to the Retina Display: looking at the 3GS now it’s painful. You see pixels on that thing. Pixels, what a thing of the past. The week after I bought the iPhone 4 I had second thoughts about the iPad screen, too, but here’s the thing: I’m still in love with my iPad. While I can’t look at the 3GS screen anymore, I still enjoy using the iPad a lot. Sure it’s no Retina Display, but I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe the great new apps available for the iPad helped in the process.

I also used the iPhone 4 during a concert and a 9 hours road trip. At the concert I managed to shoot some amazing recordings which, surprisingly enough, also came out with good sound quality. Did Apple tweak the mic as well? Or maybe is the new noise canceling technology? As for the road trip, I bought a car mount and connected the iPhone to my car’s audio system. The Retina Display made it easy to choose songs while driving, as everything on screen is more polished and bright. This is technology applied to real-life situations.

Oh yeah, my iPhone 4 is jailbroken. I didn’t think I could feel the need to jailbreak it, but once I heard FaceTime 3G calls would be possible thanks to My3G (and later, 3G Unrestrictor) I made the switch. I had some great FaceTime calls on 3G, including a serious awesome one with Robert Scoble while he was in Boulder, Colorado chatting with my friend Raj Ramamurthy. Also, I installed MyWi (which can turn your iPhone into a portable wifi hotspot) and a cool Activator tweak called SpringFlash that lets you trigger the iPhone’s LED flash with custom activation methods. Mine is “tap on volume heads up display”. The FlashLight feature came in handy when I had to wander around the camping at night.

I don’t use a case, and never will. The iPhone 4 is beautiful as it is, and I know a case would only hide this gorgeous industrial design.

Battery life had its ups and downs. While I managed to get 38 hours once, when I was at the beach the phone lasted less than 7 hours. I think that push notifications + 3G + jailbreak apps + Twitterrific every 10 minutes killed it. Maybe you’re not supposed to actually work all day with an iPhone 4. Maybe I just needed to take less pictures and videos with it.

Yes, the camera is really great - we talked about this before. Apple’s camera + Camera+ (hey, it was pulled last night!) is a winning combo, and I don’t remember taking photos as much as I do now. I hate the quality of photos with LED flash enabled, though.

After six weeks of intensive, real life (and maybe more) usage, I can say that there’s no better iPhone than the iPhone 4. For me, there’s no better smartphone than the iPhone 4. It allowed me to get things done while I was away from my office, it took some beautiful photos and videos of great moments with my friends and, overall, it turned out to be more than a simple cellphone - it’s a useful device.

It changes everything.