My advice for those of you who want to purchase a screen protector for your iPhone 4: Don’t bother investing in a ZAGG invisibleSHIELD. Here’s why:

1. The thing doesn’t play nicely with wrap-around iPhone 4 cases. Case in point: As I mentioned yesterday, I use a Belkin Shield Micra. The way it wraps around the front of the iPhone is almost exactly the way the bumpers work. I had Todd install my invisibleSHIELD according to the directions provided by ZAGG. It was the most pain in the butt process ever, but Todd is notorious for following instructions to the T, and he did exactly what they recommended. Guess what? As soon as the dust settled and I put my Shield Micra on, I started having problems with the invisibleSHIELD peeling up at the edges. This happened over and over again over a few days’ worth of use, and I just got tired of it. This did NOT happen with the Power Supply brand screen protector I had used for my iPhone 3G.* Now, since Apple is going to be paying for everyone to get a bumper (at least for a little while), you’re probably going to use it or something like it, right? Good luck with that if you get an invisibleSHIELD.

2. It degrades finger traction. I ended up taking the invisibleSHIELD off after a few days, in frustration, not only because of the edge-peeling, but also because I just couldn’t get good finger traction on the screen, using it. I’m not a big gamer, but I play  few games here and there (Words With Friends, The Sims), and my touch screen was definitely less responsive with the invisibleSHIELD on.

3. It decreases the aesthetic appeal of the Retina display. One of the most amazing things about the iPhone 4 is the incredible Retina display. It is simply a joy to look at photos and iBooks and, well, everything, on this screen. It’s just wow. But something was slightly degraded about this appearance once the invisibleSHIELD was applied, and despite ZAGG’s claims that the invisibleSHIELD “helps reduce the appearance of fingerprint smudges and smears,” I found the opposite to be true: I noticed more smudges and smears while using the invisibleSHIELD – maybe because I had to press so much harder to get the touch screen to respond. Ha.

4. Shipping is slow. At least, it was for me. I ordered my invisibleSHIELD on June 16. I received a ship confirmation e-mail from ZAGG on June 18. Fine. Except, err, it didn’t arrive until nearly two full weeks later, on July 1. Take into consideration, there were NO federal holidays during this time during which the U.S. Postal Service wouldn’t have been running. I had started to think my order had gotten lost or mangled in the mail, because First Class mail typically takes two to three days to get from Salt Lake City to Honolulu. Yeah, no idea what happened here. That wouldn’t be a huge deal, except . . .

5. Customer service is slow, but the customer needs to act quickly. When I filled out the customer service form on the ZAGG website to request a refund because I was dissatisfied with the product (satisfaction guaranteed and all), it took six business days before they got back to me with what basically amounted to a form letter. Six! Seriously? I filled out a form on the Internet, I didn’t hand-write a letter. The kicker is, the e-mail read, in part, “We would be happy to extend a refund, providing your return mail is postmarked within 45 days of your original purchase date of June 17, 2010.” Wait, so you get to take all week (plus a day) to get back to me and the shipping method you choose takes forever, but I only have 45 days from the date of purchase to get my butt in gear and send stuff back to you? I’m pretty quick with turnaround, but the point remains, this is hardly fair. They even knew that I hadn’t received the product in a timely manner because I had communicated to them before my concern that it had gotten lost in the mail; by the time I received a response from them, it had finally arrived.

OK, so all in all, it’s really not a HUGE deal. If anything happens where my returned product gets lost in the mail, I’m out $15 (“We recommend you send your return back to us via a traceable method as we are not liable for anything lost in the mail.” Whatever, I’m not gonna pay for delivery confirmation when it costs me 44 cents to send this thing back.), and I’m not suffering for that money or anything. But I’m just so frustrated/irritated by the fact that it takes this company so long to do anything. I thought maybe it was just me, but I expressed my frustrations to a friend, and she reported having similar experiences with their customer service, etc. She, too, gave up on a ZAGG product . . . so, buyer beware!

* I would have purchased a Power Supply screen protector to begin with, but the ZAGG brand was available at the time of the iPhone 4 release, which was the only reason I had decided to order it at all – I wanted to have something to protect my screen as readily as possible. Clearly, that just didn’t work out. I placed my order with the tried-and-true company and am now patiently waiting for the Power Supply version to come in!