CNET: iPhone not a true widescreen.

[SurfRat]

Just read this article over at the CNET blog, Crave. I was pretty surprised to find this out. Can anyone confirm if this is the case or not? If it's true, then why? Seems a little odd to me seeing as how many are calling this the "true" video iPod?

What do you guys think?

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9677969-1.html?tag=cnetfd.mt

[addabox]

I would guess they designed what they though was the best compromise amongst all the competing functionalities of the iPhone. If it were a dedicated video player I would be surprised.

As it is, the idea that a little cropping or a 1/4" of black letterboxing "comprises the wide screen experience" on a device this size seems silly.

[SurfRat]

Yeah, that's a good point. I guess for an ipod/phone/internet device, 16:9 just might not be the best choice.

[gregmightdothat]

There's no such thing as "true" widescreen. HDTV is 1.78:1 (16:9). Movie theatres in the US are commonly 1.85:1 or 2.40:1. Lots of theatres in Europe are 1.66:1. Ben-Hur was 2.76:1.

[Marvin]

We know the iphone isn't widescreen because when Steve showed Pirates of the Caribbean, it cut off the sides and he double-tapped it to go into proper widescreen size where it showed letterboxing. The PSP is the same:

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/9439/sonypspdvdmovietp9.jpg

It's just not practical to have a widescreen device unless it is solely for viewing movies, which neither the iphone nor PSP are.

[Macvault]

Steve Jobs said they were introducing a Widescreen iPod, a Phone, and an Internet Communicator. But then when he demos the thing by watching Pirates of the Carribean he had to "tap" on the screen to get the full "widescreen" view, otherwise the movie was cropped. You can see him doing it right in the keynote video. When I saw this I thought to myself, "this is suppose to be a widescreen". WTF!?

[BRussell]

Yeah I suppose they could have reduced the pixels and made it 280X480 rather than 320X480 and then it would have been widescreen for real, instead of this rip off!

I don't get this line from the article: "The specs of the iPhone list a pixel count of 480x320. In and of itself, that doesn't prove anything: some displays utilize rectangular pixels, which allows them to deliver a true 16:9 picture." Huh? So you stretch some pixels lengthwise and that gives you widescreen?

What's ironic is that people refer to the Zune's 320X240 - same as iPod - as "widescreen."

[Kickaha]

I think CNET was having a very, VERY slow news day if they had to resort to grade school arithmetic to create this sort of moronic non-issue. Jeez.

[Splinemodel]

Yeah I suppose they could have reduced the pixels and made it 280X480 rather than 320X480 and then it would have been widescreen for real, instead of this rip off!


Bingo. With iPhone, you get widescreen video with controls at the bottom. The PSP is 480x272 or thereabouts.

There's no such thing as "true" widescreen. HDTV is 1.78:1 (16:9). Movie theatres in the US are commonly 1.85:1 or 2.40:1. Lots of theatres in Europe are 1.66:1. Ben-Hur was 2.76:1.
Yeah, that's why most theaters have motorized curtains. A lot of movies are 2.40:1 and 2.35:1 these days, and when viewed on HDTVs you still get black boxes.

[-dF]

It sure is wider than our old 4:3 TVs.

Old 4:3 TVs / Pan & Scan movies = 1.33:1 aspect ratio

iPhone ================ 1.5:1 aspect ratio

Widescreen Cinema Display ==== 1.6:1 aspect ratio

Widescreen movies vary greatly in their aspect ratios: 1.66:1, 1.76:1, 1.85:1, 2:1, 2.35:1 (Pirates)


Basically, the "wideness" is between an old TV and your widescreen computer display, but closer to the display. Anything wider than this would probably make for an awkward phone when held portrait (it is a [i]phone, after all).

In closing, it is wider than the Zune :p

[Galley]

FWIW, PDAs have been 1.5:1 for years.

[Splinemodel]

FWIW, PDAs have been 1.5:1 for years.

PDAs are more commonly 240x320. 320x480 PDAs are more recent, and less common. 320x480 (or 480x320) isn't that common of a size for displays.