Apple's new iPhone rumored with A4 chip, forward-facing camera - Page 3

No, it's not. A handheld tablet is never going to be conducive to video conferencing unless it's on a desk/table top on a stand. The ergonomics will never work - who wants to hold a pad out (probably with both hands) to have a conversation with someone?

front facing camera for what??? at&t's 3g network can barely handle regular calls... how and the h3ll will it handle data and voice simultaneously?

I think I am missing something in this paragraph solipsism.

Are you saying Apple picked the less advanced chip to get it out faster, and as lower risk strategy?

What are you talking about? I do voice and data at the same time all the time. Not one issue.

I agree though, I don't need a front facing camera. Each to their own.

Of course it's subjective judgment based on his personal preference/opinion, who's preference/opinion would he be talking about? Your's? What a fatuous thing to say.

Yet another person who claims authority over the HD definition and how its used. Get. Over. It.

With their junk hanging out?

If the HD spurs the Chinese to produce better knock offs, then it is a good thing.

But it will also be just another luxury item from Apple that most people cannot afford.

Yeah, that's why MS can't even copy themselves and Win Mobile 7 won't have copy paste.


Oh for sure me too, haven't noticed this, but does the ipad have this? I suppose being on the same os it probably doesn't.

Yeah, this makes sense. And the name A2 would make sense from a marketing POV.

Looking at he tweets it appears his post was him claiming these exact things, he even admitted he has more info he didn't reveal.

You can never tell with Apple, perhaps they'll call it iPhone 4.

Only at launch, my friend. The iPhone didn't get it until after the second iteration of the hardware and OS 3.0. To use an argument that's been used many times, MS is waiting to optimize its version before releasing it into the wild.

http://www.phonedog.com/2010/03/18/w...et-copy-paste/


If it ends up being a 4G-enabled phone, then 4GS would fit.


But as someone had mentioned earlier, front-facing camera does mean a much higher data load on AT&T's network. Can it handle it? And full 3G/4G is still limited to the areas around a few major cities, so what happens when you verture into an area that's EDGE only? Will the video data be compressed enough that it'll remain smooth even with EDGE?

Yes of course, plus some cost cutting measures, plus, what I think is more important that they wouldn't have had the time to implement a custom A9 cortex design, so they went with the A8 that could afford them more developement time for their customisation.

I wonder what the p.a. semi folk are up to, since by most accounts it seems that the vlsi design team is behind the A4.

Yes, well, with the slight exception that MS will be two years late to the party when they eventually implement copy paste. As Dan Dilger pointed out very succinctly in rd recently, their problem is not that their are copying apple's strategy (see zune, the courrier vapourware, and their new mobile platform), it's that they are copying the strategy 2-3 years too late every time. And strategies work in the right time frame, not when they are 2 years late to an already mature market.

Exactly. Besides, talking on the phone is way more efficient and a nicer experience.

According to the article, MS has already figured out how to implement copy/paste in a way that fits the WP7S OS. It's just a matter of getting it into the OS code via an update that will happen shortly after the release.

Could they take longer, as you imply? Sure, anything's possible. But after getting their sh*t together with WP7S, I'm willing to throw MS a bone on this one.

My understanding of his comment is that an Ipad has a bigger screen, better battery and most likely to be used on a wifi connection. If, with those advantages, it does not have a forward facing camera then why would the iphone?

I am sure this will be a personal preference thing, but I have zero interest in using video chat when I am on the move. I do use video chat at home but I can't imagine video chatting in a restaurant, bar, etc.

Maybe at at a nudie bar but camera's are usually banned anyways. ;-)

The idea with the 3G "S" was that it was faster than the 3G. There is no iPhone 4G, so 4G S wouldn't make sense. Besides, the networks for 4G just aren't there yet.

iPhone 4 makes sense, they may even simply call it: "the new iPhone". I.E.: "iPhone".

Pure semantics. Removing gates on the processor that will not be used to increase speed while reducing battery use is not making it week. This is not a pc box that has to support an almost infinite amount of hardware.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...pads-brain.ars

Good points.

I would hope it's faster than the 3GS. Maybe 3GSS then.

It'll be faster I'd say. That's not my main concern though. As an owner of both a 2G and 3G iPhone, and currently using the 2G - I hope Apple have the sense to make the new iPhone narrower in width.

The iPhone 2G is 61 mm wide.
The iPhone 3G (and S) are 62.1 mm wide.

The difference in width is noticeable in the hand. In that the 2G is "far" more comfortable to hold. Apple need to make iPhone 4 with no side black bezels, making it 59 mm wide, and even nicer to hold then the 2G.

This is the main thing I want, anything else is a bonus. Like OLED.

alright you have performed your trolling quota for today, you may leave now...

I do not think China will ever produce "better" knockoffs, but they certainly produce junk that I do not have the luxury to waste time with...

Lets all see if we can get a rumor started.... Hmmm. What should it be? How about "iPhone 2000 will have a scale built in so you can stand on it to check your weight." Sounds almost plausible, right? I mean, I know I'd probably crush it, but all those weight watching highschool girls might believe such a thing and think they could make real use of it.

What else... Oh! How about "iPhone Deluxe will make your car get better gas mileage and more horsepower." That one might seem plausible to the gear heads who know what it takes to reprogram a car's chip, right?

Cmon there's gotta be something we all can make up that will start getting circulated and help add to everyone's overall disappointed when it turns out not to be true. I love the iphone rumor game. ANYTHING GOES.

"iPhone Deluxe Gold 2000 will feature a built in atom smasher so people can see what the first instances of our universe looked like."

"Super iPhone will actually be a small autonomous robot which hovers over your right shoulder, following you wherever you go, responding to loud voice commands."

cmon help me out here people. Lets see what we can come up with and we'll get the article writers here at AI to write up something that looks almost real, and when that gets on Google News it's all over.

Here's the translated page for everyone courtesy of the goggle:

Quit a long time broke the habit of
But still a lot of friends at home and abroad often interesting information came to me look
Take advantage of a good mood today
Now share with you recently received broke the picture (addiction has committed do)

The above picture is coming from a certain User
I have not seen the kind so I can not exactly tell you the truth in
This is his cell phone so the quality is not a good film
However, User who does have a video I took with me Look at those things
So ..

According to his statement
This is iPhone LCD with touch of four generations in the glass and frame photos
As we all know
iPhone generation LCD plus touch glass is ㄧ the entire group
But the iPhone 3G / iPhone 3GS turned into a separate LCD and touch
The iPhone 4G LCD is indeed again together with the touch can not be divided (that maintenance costs can be relatively high)
The screen because of the positive lens more
So, somewhat longer than the overall length of the current iPhone 3G / iPhone 3GS
Figure 2 we can see that the middle of the screen that is the iPhone 4G Group
There is the white top left position of the location of pre-isight video camera
The first figure we can also see a blank screen at the top left is really the location of

While the frame at present we see is black
I wonder if this is not the prototype materials and parts through the plating and the like will not be processed
Stent position in the box but now that the current iPhone 3G / iPhone 3GS different
We can see from the first group on the left side of Figure 4 position liquid crystal corresponding to the third position of the graph box
Will find that can really mix
So these three images has greatly enhanced the credibility of

In any case
Read a positive screen and the frame
In addition to more than isight
Does not seem to change much
You must be on the back cover of the material compared with the appearance of curiosity
Judai break next time ... (that is, Jobs is often said that One more thing ... ha)

Until we get the devices in hand for low level tests on the processor we simply don't know what Apple is using.

Yes, spending more time optimizing a slightly older design can be more beneficial than throwing in a newer design that you get little to no time to optimize. This is common among all industries with embedded systems. Apple was neither the first nor will they be the last to do this.

PS: What what with the reading comprehension around here yesterday? I never stated Corex A9 specs were unknown, I stated that the A4 specs were unknown and that if Apple did use a Cortex A9 with multiple cores it would have been a good marketing position to advertise that.

Unkowwn chip design = A4
Over = used to express preference
I thought it was clear.

They've had the same physical design for 2 years. Personally, I think that is good time to switch it up for marketing sake. That does mean accessories will have to change it up, too, and depending on the level of secrecy and type of change some accessories could be in short supply for awhile.

I think the name is pretty irrelevant. I haven't liked an Apple name in years. The AppleTV is the best I've liked since Jobs return and that isn't exactly their best seller. If I had to make a wager I'd say that they won't use the number '4' until LTE is here, though if they do plan to offer it next year then calling this one iPhone 4 and the next iPhone 4G would make sense.

I'm not so sure about OLED. For that to come I think Apple would have to completely change the iPhone OS v4.0 look to use a lot of blacks to reduce power consumption. The good thing is this could carry over the iPad's LCD and not affect power. I suppose we'll be able to tell what the display tech will be based on the iPhone OS v4.0 demo, which tends to be a couple months before the iPhone HW release.

He-he. If Apple managed somehow to push the processor speed to its upper limit and at the same time to make that processor be champion of energy effectiveness, it'd be the major break-through in appliance design. Not that it's impossible, but very doubtful.

Fast chip doesn't necessarily equate to a faster system if the chip isn't optimized for it and if the OSes used are disparate. There was a reason MS had to push XP to netbooks and lost some notebook sales to Linux: Vista wouldn't run on netbooks. MS has corrected that with Win7, but I bet you that I can start up the iPad and load the WSJ in Safari before you can start up a netbook and to the WSJ in IE.

Windows is simply not ideal for a netbook's power. Nor is ideal for a 10" display. Then there are issue with display quality and the quality of other aspects which affect usability. Can a netbook do more things than a netbook? Sure. Are most of these things what the average person wants it for? No. Will the faster netbook seem faster than the slower iPad simply because it has faster HW? Absolutely not, which is the single most important fact for the consumer when it comes to speed, not some spec sheet.

A 960x640 screen is not an oddball resolution. It's the best resolution to use if Apple were to increase the screen resolution of the iPhone and iPod touch. You guys should be dancing in the isle for it. App developers should be screaming YES! YES! YES!

There's basically no other choice. Apple has 150,000 and more applications designed to 480x320 at 3.5" diagonal. The best way to compete in the screen resolution race when you have that many applications to maintain backward compatibility with is to double the pixel density and quadruple the number of pixels to 960x640. This way, all the old apps can run at 960x640 and still look great. It should be appear no different.

If you look at the iPad, or rather, iPhone OS X 3.2, Apple has already implemented pixel "doubling" so that iPhone/iPod touch apps can run on the iPad and fill most of the screen. The "2x" button doesn't fill the screen of the 1024x768 iPad. It runs iPhone apps at 960x640 on the iPad and results in small black borders (64 pixels and 32 pixels on each side, except for the status bar). If Apple were to use 960x640, the "2x" for iPhone OS 3.1 and prior apps would be the default.

This also would signify that Apple will continue selling a "low cost" iPhone 3GS and iPod touch at 480x320. The big difference between an iPhone and an iPad is the screen area, not screen resolution. Applications have to be redesigned to take advantage of the 8x larger screen area on the iPad. If the screen resolution was increased on the iPhone, but the screen size stayed in the 3.5" range, apps wouldn't change as the screen size is the same. By doing this, Apple are giving app developers the easiest upgrade path. Developers would design at 960x640, then downscaling graphics and fonts for 480x320 for low end iPhone and iPod devices. For iPad, they have to redesign the UI, not just the graphics, but the UI! It'll basically be a different application.

Only issue is whether such a density screen, 320+ ppi, is economically viable. 720x480 would be cheaper, but at 1.5x upscaling, old applications would look ugly and would force app developers to redo the app graphics. With 150k apps, that isn't going to happen.

Who knows, Apple may stick with 480x320, or go with 720x480 because the screens would be cheaper and force developers to redevelop old applications and make users suffer 1.5x upscaling. But 960x640 would technically be best resolution to use for consumers and developers.

Let me see if I can envision how this would work.

Scenario One:

1) you get a call from that cute girl... her beautiful likeness is displayed on your phone (and conversely, yours on her phone).

2) you want to whisper sweet nothings to each other so you both put the phones to your ears for a private conversation.

3) through the corner of your eye, you can just barely strain to see the other's earhole in magnificent color and full closeup splendor.


Scenario Two:

1) you get a call from someone (as above) and want to hold a conversation while visually verifying that the other person is who she says she is, and that she is alone (and vice versa)

2) you each hold the phone 18 inches in front of your face and yell at it so the other person* can see and hear you.

* and anyone else unfortunate to be nearby

I can see it now... a restaurant full of realtors (or similar sales people) all sitting around chatting up their clients by spewing at their phones


Reminds me of my dear, late grandma Kate. She had poor hearing and had a then (1950) state-of-the-art hearing aid. It was about the size and weight of a 1-gen iPod. To carry it on her person, she would insert it in her bodice (the only practical place).

This normally worked fine. However, sometimes it would act finicky. Picture a very proper lady, in public, digging down the front of her dress, pulling out the hearing aid, holding it in front of her face and yelling: "Hello, hello... testing, one, two, three, four testing"...

Ah, fond memories!

I couldn't agree more, 960 x 640 would be insane on such a small screen!

Maybe 800 x 480 would be more realistic, according to what competitors like HTC are doing.

1) Curiously, what wasn't clear about the statement, "Plus, [Apple] advertised some unknown chip designation they invented over the Cortex A9 with multiple cores".

2) I'm not sure what you mean by can or can't do. It can do pretty much what the iPhone can do but with a faster chip and larger display, which does open it up to a lot more possibilities. Will it run Adobe Photoshop, like I've seen installed on a netbook? No, but I wouldn't want to even try to use PS on a netbook either. There are some interesting design apps coming for the iPad that do look promising, though. It really is changing the way we look at computing.

3) There will be netbook sales going to the iPad and other tablets. Netbooks have more features and options than the iPad but for what people typically need from these devices the iPad and other tablets running a mobile OS will likely suit them just fine, so I do expect a netbook drop after competing tablets hit the market.

4) Now you've shifted from netbook to notebook. The demarkation is clear and full-sized PCs have nothing to fear from a 10" tablet regardless of what it's performance is.

5) In regards to Intel outside of the low-volume high-end processors that Apple gets earlier than other companies as a marketing campaign for both companies Apple has been using the lastest chips in most releases.

Usually about a month or so after the release. Apple does have to have hundreds of thousands of these machines in their stores on launch day while Dell and HP, who do little higher-end sales only have to advertise and have BTO option. They aren't buying as many as Apple out of the gate. This boutique-style strategy doesn't scale well, but that's another topic altogether.

There are few case where Apple doesn't use the chips Intel offers and then comes out with some hybrid option that is part of the current and future design, like in an IMac from a couple years ago. I don't think those chips were ever sold to anyone else.

This is the first time since moving to Intel that I can recall Apple going so long between a Pro notebook update (their biggest selling category) without updating to a good jump in both performance and efficiency, which is why many of us longtime Mac users have been waiting for new MBPs; it's a bit unprecedented.

yes the ipad is different but it is also the same line up and same OS. Look at the quote it even says "mobile devices"

for me the question is what effect would video conferencing have on battery life. Cause the iphone is not known for a great battery. Put it on 3g with a video conference and how fast are you draining things.

Now do the same with the ipad with its much bigger battery.

merely a rumor, not fact.


the last major update was in June 2009. less than a year ago. so is anything really so late.


nice dream but so unlikely at this point. touch screen on a computer, outside of retail kiosks and such, is a gimmick. Apple rarely does gimmicks

And without licensing the OS or having a specific need to make Macs for some commercial endeavor that require a touchscreen it doesn't very likely.

Well we know they won't license until they are legally forced to.

I could see them eventually creating a touchscreen custom item so businesses that could use it have that very expensive option. Perhaps even include the vesa adapter as a line item to add. But at this point, on the consumer level it's a gimmick.

Right now consumers (even Prosumers) are better served with better battery life, affordable SSD options, matte screen custom item on the whole lineup (imacs included) etc. Prosumers need more display options on size and matte finish, faster and/or bigger everything in the Pro and OS support so they can go buy a 3rd party internal blu-ray drive and pop it into that tower. These are the things that Apple needs to deal with before something limited use like a touch screen mac

Gruber more or less confirms his earlier post:


So he's flat saying there will be a 960x640 display, which I take to mean he meant the rest of it as well. Given Gruber's track record (he's willing to speculate like any of us, but he rarely openly declares anything as a fact unless he has some pretty solid info) I'm thinking there's a very good chance that the next iPhone will have the A4 chip, front facing camera, high res screen and multitasking.

I think it's interesting that "multitasking" is in that list but hardly anyone is talking about it. I thought that was the Most Needed Thing Ever?

Well, they won't license for desktop/notebook or phone/tablet usage, but they could license a version of iPhone OS for limited consumer electronics or ATM kiosk type usage. Things they aren't interested in making themselves, but which utilize touch interfaces.

But, yeah, a touch interface on desktop/notebook systems is just a stupid gimmick, and Apple isn't usually in the stupid gimmick business.

You're running OS X optimized for the device at hand, as always. With a chip optimized for the device at hand, which means balancing power draw against performance in specific areas.

Apple doesn't design to specs, they design to the experience. If the iPad does what it's designed to do and does it well, then Apple has done their job well. Talk of whether or not the iPad is actually "powerful" or how it's only for novices is the provenance of little boys waving their tiny dicks.