The first part is easy. The latter? How exactly do you lock a wifi channel?
I'm not a programmer any more, but there are ways of binding a device. I can't say how, exactly, but it has to do with passwording the system. On a consumer device, no. I read an article in the EETimes about that some time ago.
The quality you are talking about is fine for SD. Why are we even bothering to talk about HD video if you've compressed it in h.264 and your computation for space means one video file -- you've destroyed the source, the rendering and the final? You also need empty space to swap out files and memory. The 2 hour -online video is not even the quality of what you would see on a normal NTSC video stream.
There certainly is a lot of fudge room depending on codecs and if Apple has the ability to encode and edit in h.264 because of a chip on the iPhone -- I'd like that dang chip on my Final Cut Pro editing suite -- not because I'd every author in h.264, but just because I'd like to watch some TV while I'm editing.
Most Standard DVDs utilize hours of high quality compression. H.264 codec is a bit more efficient than MPEG of MPEG2, but its also more complex.
I think the STANDARD of Hi-resolution video editing, where people are trained on You-Tube quality, will work on the mass market... because they don't know any better. But it's not really HD quality editing on a 32G device for an 1 hour.
I expect this is more along the lines of a Novelty -- like those 12 Megapixel cameras with horrible optics and sensors. People will be making 2 and 5 minute masterpieces of their kids playing with a hose and chasing the cat and maybe superimpose a bouncing head of the dog.
I think there are a lot of video editors who might like it for quick "dailies" or whatnot. It's fine for playing back and tweaking compressed videos. But I'm not going to be able to use it as a real video camera on HD and then Edit my family video -- because I'm going to have at least 2 or 3 hours of the family on vacation. Plus, I think we'd all go slowly insane not having a 24" monitor and 50 or more tiny icons of the edit points.
The hype makes it sound like a serious HD experience and there is no way for a number of reasons, that it will provide that.
A few points. Most standard DVD's utilize about 2 hours of MPEG-2 compression for 480P video @ 720 x 480 (NTSC), which requires more bitrate than H.264 (H.264 is easily about 25% more efficient, and in some cases, closer to 50%). I am not some YouTube newbie when it comes to video. i've been writing hobbyist encoding guides for many many years (just Google DJRumpy). The quality I'm talking about is HD video (720P), not 480P, not 480i, but 720P. I have many samples sitting on my HTPC as we speak. You also seem to be confused as to how the video is encoded. It is encoded on the fly (with much better quality assuming hardware assist). There is no temporary file, because they don't use 2-pass for live encodes. The file is encoded on the fly into h.264. The 3GS already does this with lower res 480P video @ 30 FPS.
You seem to be ignoring the point that a studio release Movie in 1080p with DTS audio for 2-3 hours rarely approaches more than 35 GB. Granted those are multi-pass and also encoded with hardware encoders, but they are representative of what can be achieved with 1080P. Typical 1080P Blu-Ray size is more around 25 GB. This is not some youtube video, it's what you're buying at the store when you purchase a Blu-Ray. I fail to see why you expect that the iPhone would take more space than an 1080P HD Blu-Ray disc for a few hours of video. The sensor is more than sufficient to film 720P video, and the example video shown at the demo was impressive to say the least. Time will tell if that holds up for Joe User.
2. I just bought an iPad. I don't see anyythng on iPhone 4 that I *need*;
3. My iPhone 3G does what I need a phone to do;
4. Ergo, I'm not digging re-upping with ATT for another 2 years to get a iPhone 4.
5. I'm in wait mode. Rule of tech upgrade applies - buy when you need it, not before.
I do hope (and rather expect) the iOS 4 will run on my iPad. Will find out in a couple weeks. Given it is the same A4 chip, I expect it to run essentially all the features of iPhone 4. Purely a guess though. I do expect further word on the tethering issue though. Curious to see how that plays out.
Always amazes me when forum posters (people whose time and expertise is so highly valued that they donate their knowledge free anonymously) think they know more about a (WILDLY successful) business than the people who are paid 6 figures to manage it. If you honestly do, you're honestly clueless.
Yes. And there are several methods to do that. The backlit sensor is a major feature. Sony first came out with these for their D-SLR's. People don't understand how a sensor works. The circuits are actually ABOVE the sensing sites. This technology reverses the chip, making it more sensitive, as the light doesn't have to go through those layers.
Apple may be using a slightly larger chip as well. I believe I read that about this chip. In addition, Canon, and others, are making chips with less dead space between the sensing sites, allowing the sites to be larger.
I've followed this a tiny bit -- enough to be dangerous and realize that some of the Nonsense about "pixel resolution" and brightness (in a dark room) is great on paper -- but the Apple tech is getting much better in practice.
It's hard to say without looking at the specs if you are talking about the camera sensors or the display screen. And interestingly, Apple has been using Camera sensor tech in their displays and vice versa. Pretty soon, the screens will be very, very close to camera sensors themselves.
The larger sensors, mean better light and color recognition IF, you have an aperture getting enough light to them. So, on average, with the SAME technology, a 1" sensor is going to be superior to a 3/8" sensor almost every time. People have gotten all excited about 5 and 12 megapixel cameras but they are lots of extra pixels of interpolated junk.
I really like that Apple seems to really recognize quality, and they are going for good tradeoffs (overall) in price and performance vs. battery life. I'm just hoping that MAYBE, they'd offer a "plugged-in" mode. Because these iPads and iPhones are going to have lots of places to at least be near a socket. The battery life is awesome and completely necessary on the road -- but more than half the time -- I am somewhere playing a game or editing something and I'd go for really bright display and more speed.
The "micro-napping" on the CPU itself and the display could probably have a non-economy mode relatively easily - and I wish Apple would allow for developers to have a toggle that the OS controlled of "Economy and Performance" -- just make it a system-wide two-state option.
I also wonder how much simpler it will be to get your music on a Droid than an iPhone, if it's too much work to use a playlist setup on iTunes to manage two iOS devices?
I'm not planning to put music on a Droid. That'll have to stay on the iPod.
Rather than go into exhaustive detail, I'll just say that my music collection is extensive, 3 playlists cover most of it (something like 99%), and iTunes says I have more than 44 GB of audio files on my iPod. (I have very broad musical tastes.) One of my goals is to not spend a lot of time managing files.
I looked back at the history of the iPhone and iPod since they were introduced. Based on the past, I think we can expect no intermediate memory upgrades, and 64GB iPhones next June, followed by 128GB iPods in September 2011. Though I was hoping that after 3 years, Moore's Law of doubling every 18 months would have kicked in for this round of updates.
Always amazes me when forum posters (people whose time and expertise is so highly valued that they donate their knowledge free anonymously) think they know more about a (WILDLY successful) business than the people who are paid 6 figures to manage it. If you honestly do, you're honestly clueless.
With this "Money = value of opinion" metric ... Well, then how could the Zune have ever failed?
I get your point, but there are plenty of times when "from the mouths of babes" is something that 6 figure salary people need to remember.
I make a 7 figure salary, by the way, but that's with 2 digits to the right of the decimal point in mathematical precision. People often don't consider the common cents.
Are you now suggesting that these other phone manufacturers are the game-changers?
Where Apple continue to excell is what Steve Jobs refer to as the meeting (or intersection) of "Technology and Liberal Arts" in the design and the conceptualization of Apple products, under the tutelage of Steve Jobs.
Achieving this requires subtlety and finesse, it requires a mindset the whole is not a simple summation of the parts (or as you love to call -- features). A flash of features with no unity is simply ostentatious.
Simplicity is virtue when the heart and soul of the creator comes forth.
You can experience this intersection of "Technology and Liberal Arts" if you are immersed in the Apple ecosystem. What is derided as the "walled garden" in the iOS ecosystem is actually one of the strengths of that ecosystem. The freedom from being exposed to limited risk of exposure to) spams and malwares encourages those who embrace the iOS ecosystem to venture. Thus, instead of being imprisoned, they discover new worlds beyond their horizon.
Sure there are limits, but any developer -- of any age and from all parts of the world -- with something to share will more than likely be allured by the vast target -- 100 million iOS devices.
CGC
Nice speech. You've read way too far into my post. I'm just saying that we have to be fair to both sides. Give credit where credit is due. A device/feature doesn't have to be "game changing" to count. If another device had it before, it had it before.
The original post I responded to made it seem like the features shown today were all ground-breaking and new. I just simply corrected him. The gyroscope and the screen were what I personally thought were the newest of new features. Everything else have already been around for a while. Apple just happened to polish them up nicely.
Always amazes me when forum posters (people whose time and expertise is so highly valued that they donate their knowledge free anonymously) think they know more about a (WILDLY successful) business than the people who are paid 6 figures to manage it. If you honestly do, you're honestly clueless.
I expanded on my answer to make my position more clear. Please read what I wrote and reconsider your very rude answer. We are all Apple fans here and there is no need for name calling. Grow up.
I've followed this a tiny bit -- enough to be dangerous and realize that some of the Nonsense about "pixel resolution" and brightness (in a dark room) is great on paper -- but the Apple tech is getting much better in practice.
It's hard to say without looking at the specs if you are talking about the camera sensors or the display screen. And interestingly, Apple has been using Camera sensor tech in their displays and vice versa. Pretty soon, the screens will be very, very close to camera sensors themselves.
The larger sensors, mean better light and color recognition IF, you have an aperture getting enough light to them. So, on average, with the SAME technology, a 1" sensor is going to be superior to a 3/8" sensor almost every time. People have gotten all excited about 5 and 12 megapixel cameras but they are lots of extra pixels of interpolated junk.
I really like that Apple seems to really recognize quality, and they are going for good tradeoffs (overall) in price and performance vs. battery life. I'm just hoping that MAYBE, they'd offer a "plugged-in" mode. Because these iPads and iPhones are going to have lots of places to at least be near a socket. The battery life is awesome and completely necessary on the road -- but more than half the time -- I am somewhere playing a game or editing something and I'd go for really bright display and more speed.
The "micro-napping" on the CPU itself and the display could probably have a non-economy mode relatively easily - and I wish Apple would allow for developers to have a toggle that the OS controlled of "Economy and Performance" -- just make it a system-wide two-state option.
This is more than a bit complex, and I don't know just how far you want to get into it. The sensors for phones are tiny. Really tiny. The sensing sites are tiny. We saw the number; 1.75 um. Even high rez cameras with APS C sensors have sites that are far larger, at 5 um. Sensing sites for most compact digital cameras are between 2.25 and 2.75 um.
Given the same lens, anything that can be done to keep those sites the same size as resolution goes up, would be welcome. A slightly larger sensor requires a slightly larger coverage lens. More expense. The lens also has to be of higher quality with more pixels.
It was considered, years ago, that up to about 3 MP, lens quality wasn't that important, because even a cheap lens would manage quite well. But at 5 MP, the lens has to be better.
Given the same "f" stop, anything that increases sensitivity of the sensor would also be welcome. Backlit sensors are a breakthrough. I'm happy Apple is using one. The one they are using is the only one available for camera phones right now. But Apple isn't exclusive. It could be sold to other phone makers.
First, your overall response to the question is very good. What many fail to realize is that for a revolution to mean anything (historically) it [mostly] requires for the revolution to be successful, No?
I have intermingled some comments and questions where appropriate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
I see this phone as being far ahead of whatever's out there now. Do I see it as revolutionary? Well, yes, in a way I do.
What we've been seeing is that when Apple implements a feature, it becomes an important feature to have. It becomes used. When other companies have introduced the same features, we haven't seen that. One reason is as Jobs has said, Apple sweats the details. They get it right. Android phones have a fair amount of poorly thought out features. The OS is still wonky and crude. It's not just my opinion, but the opinion of even the reviewers in many cases, even if they liked the phone. The same thing is true of the hardware. As I said, a crappy 5 MP camera, which is what these other phones mostly have, isn't impressive. If this camera proves to be as good as it looks to be, then it will make a major difference. The same thing is true of the 720p recording. I've seen that on a couple of other phones, and it's not very good. If Apple's 5 times zoom works in movie mode, it could be spectacular, if it works the way I think it might. We can look to the 5 MP sensor for that. You only need 921,600 pixels for 720p. We've got almost 6 times that. Zooming to 5x will still leave us with more than we need. It will remain sharp throughout the entire zoom range.
Can you elaborate on this? I have a Panny hdc-sd1 that has 12x Optical Zoom and beaucoups Digital Zoom.
Mostly, I use the cam to capture the grandkids soccer games and I usually sit at midfield -- so the action is up to 50 yds away. The 2-5x Optical is fine for most cases, so I seldom use the digital... there are times tho, where I want to zoom on the face or legs of a player-- goalkeep, free kick, corner kick, etc.
Are you saying that this new iPhone camera system has the possibility of equalling a 5x optical zoom? If so, that's big... really big!
Quote:
This phone can actually be a substitute for the $150 and cheaper digital cameras that people still buy in large numbers. That would be revolutionary. But, even now, iPhones are the biggest contributor to Facebook pictures.
It reminds me of the 8 hour recording time that VHS has in relation to the 5 hour record time of Beta. It sucked. It really wasn't useable. This is like a lot of the features of other phones. The features exist, but they aren't good. Apple's are good. Yes, I know that Beta died out. But Apple isn't Sony, and the iPhone isn't a Beta machine.
Ahh... the VHS- BetaMax wars. My Dad was an audiophile. Hie built his own Hi-Fis, Speakers (Stuff like base-crossover circuitry, folded horns- small night-stand-size devices where the sound emerged at the back and bottom from an internal folded-horn then used the walls and ceiling of the corners of the room to complete the effect. He could make a candy dish jump off a marble coffee table on the other side of the room. Anyway, we would argue, and he would prove to me (audibly, and visually on an oscilloscope) that BetaMax was vastly superior..
But, AIR, the thing that won the war was the early formats were limited to 1 hr BetaMax vs 2 hr VHS... You could program your VCR to tape a 1-2 hr movie on TV with VHS. You had to be there [to switch tapes] with Beta! Convenience trumped quality!
.
Quote:
I'm willing to bet that Apple's video calling will be used, while that of others won't. That makes that feature, on the iPhone, revolutionary.
The OS is better too. Apple now has covered the features other phones were offering in more poorly functioning fashion. 7 hours for 3G talk. What other smartphone comes close to that? The highest rated Android models all have fairly poor battery life. 40 hours music. Who else has that?
It's the totality of the package that matters. If you want to pick out a feature out here and there from other phones, that's fine. But it tells you nothing about the whole experience. And in that, this phone is revolutionary, as have the older ones been.
I see people who don't like Apple on other sites going meh about this, but that's just because it's an Apple product. I pay no attention to it.
AT&T's plans now cost less than they did. The difference may not be all that much. Sprint and T-Mobile offer slightly cheaper plans because they aren't doing that well, and have no choice.
I'm not planning to put music on a Droid. That'll have to stay on the iPod.
Rather than go into exhaustive detail, I'll just say that my music collection is extensive, 3 playlists cover most of it (something like 99%), and iTunes says I have more than 44 GB of audio files on my iPod. (I have very broad musical tastes.) One of my goals is to not spend a lot of time managing files.
I looked back at the history of the iPhone and iPod since they were introduced. Based on the past, I think we can expect no intermediate memory upgrades, and 64GB iPhones next June, followed by 128GB iPods in September 2011. Though I was hoping that after 3 years, Moore's Law of doubling every 18 months would have kicked in for this round of updates.
I guess I just don't understand the logic path.
iPhone doesn't have 64 GB, so you can't fit your whole music collection on it (though you could fit 75% of it). So the solution is to switch to a Droid, which also doesn't have 64 GB, and putting NO music on the phone. How is that a better solution than having 75% of your music in your pocket at all times?
I expanded on my answer to make my position more clear. Please read what I wrote and reconsider your very rude answer. We are all Apple fans here and there is no need for name calling. Grow up.
Sorry, but really believing that there's a single soul at Apple who doesn't know that ATT is generally considered a problem is totally clueless.
iPhone doesn't have 64 GB, so you can't fit your whole music collection on it (though you could fit 75% of it). So the solution is to switch to a Droid, which also doesn't have 64 GB, and putting NO music on the phone. How is that a better solution than having 75% of your music in your pocket at all times?
The lack of a 64GB iPhone means that instead of going to 1 device, I'm going to have to use 2 devices, whether I put anything on the phone or not. So one will continue to be my existing iPod which can already handle all the audio storage I'm using. The other device will be a phone plus a few other functions.
Sorry, but really believing that there's a single soul at Apple who doesn't know that ATT is generally considered a problem is totally clueless.
Glad to hear a fellow poster admitting AT&T is a problem. We have come a long way in three years.
But if Apple knows it's a problem and continues to do exclusive business with them, then who is the one that needs to get a clue?
As far as I am concerned, I am neither an AT&T booster, nor a Verizon booster. This is not a football game and I am not a cheerleader. I didn't ask to buy an iPhone based on AT&T's coverage map and then find out I don't have coverage. Now I know and since no Verizon phone is forthcoming, I am getting out. Nothing personal against Apple, AT&T or you Mr. Cameron. (I love your movies by the way)
I need a phone that makes phone calls. It's that simple. Peace.
I'm not planning to put music on a Droid. That'll have to stay on the iPod.
Rather than go into exhaustive detail, I'll just say that my music collection is extensive, 3 playlists cover most of it (something like 99%), and iTunes says I have more than 44 GB of audio files on my iPod. (I have very broad musical tastes.) One of my goals is to not spend a lot of time managing files.
I looked back at the history of the iPhone and iPod since they were introduced. Based on the past, I think we can expect no intermediate memory upgrades, and 64GB iPhones next June, followed by 128GB iPods in September 2011. Though I was hoping that after 3 years, Moore's Law of doubling every 18 months would have kicked in for this round of updates.
It is possible that, before next June, Apple will make available a means of streaming your entire iTunes music library to your iDevice. If it works well and doesn't cost much, this would reduce the need for many people (and you) to have such large memory capacity. This is something to consider before you buy an Android phone.
... and where are all of those 'Apple would never design something that looks like that lost iPhone' naysayers from last month now?
Probably in the same place as those "Who cares about a flash with a camera phone?" naysayers. And the "Who cares about multitasking?" naysayers. And the "Who cares about copy and paste?" naysayers. But those naysayers will try to backtrack and claim that they never dismissed those features, and that they have always liked Apple to add them.
Comments
The first part is easy. The latter? How exactly do you lock a wifi channel?
I'm not a programmer any more, but there are ways of binding a device. I can't say how, exactly, but it has to do with passwording the system. On a consumer device, no. I read an article in the EETimes about that some time ago.
The quality you are talking about is fine for SD. Why are we even bothering to talk about HD video if you've compressed it in h.264 and your computation for space means one video file -- you've destroyed the source, the rendering and the final? You also need empty space to swap out files and memory. The 2 hour -online video is not even the quality of what you would see on a normal NTSC video stream.
There certainly is a lot of fudge room depending on codecs and if Apple has the ability to encode and edit in h.264 because of a chip on the iPhone -- I'd like that dang chip on my Final Cut Pro editing suite -- not because I'd every author in h.264, but just because I'd like to watch some TV while I'm editing.
Most Standard DVDs utilize hours of high quality compression. H.264 codec is a bit more efficient than MPEG of MPEG2, but its also more complex.
I think the STANDARD of Hi-resolution video editing, where people are trained on You-Tube quality, will work on the mass market... because they don't know any better. But it's not really HD quality editing on a 32G device for an 1 hour.
I expect this is more along the lines of a Novelty -- like those 12 Megapixel cameras with horrible optics and sensors. People will be making 2 and 5 minute masterpieces of their kids playing with a hose and chasing the cat and maybe superimpose a bouncing head of the dog.
I think there are a lot of video editors who might like it for quick "dailies" or whatnot. It's fine for playing back and tweaking compressed videos. But I'm not going to be able to use it as a real video camera on HD and then Edit my family video -- because I'm going to have at least 2 or 3 hours of the family on vacation. Plus, I think we'd all go slowly insane not having a 24" monitor and 50 or more tiny icons of the edit points.
The hype makes it sound like a serious HD experience and there is no way for a number of reasons, that it will provide that.
A few points. Most standard DVD's utilize about 2 hours of MPEG-2 compression for 480P video @ 720 x 480 (NTSC), which requires more bitrate than H.264 (H.264 is easily about 25% more efficient, and in some cases, closer to 50%). I am not some YouTube newbie when it comes to video. i've been writing hobbyist encoding guides for many many years (just Google DJRumpy). The quality I'm talking about is HD video (720P), not 480P, not 480i, but 720P. I have many samples sitting on my HTPC as we speak. You also seem to be confused as to how the video is encoded. It is encoded on the fly (with much better quality assuming hardware assist). There is no temporary file, because they don't use 2-pass for live encodes. The file is encoded on the fly into h.264. The 3GS already does this with lower res 480P video @ 30 FPS.
You seem to be ignoring the point that a studio release Movie in 1080p with DTS audio for 2-3 hours rarely approaches more than 35 GB. Granted those are multi-pass and also encoded with hardware encoders, but they are representative of what can be achieved with 1080P. Typical 1080P Blu-Ray size is more around 25 GB. This is not some youtube video, it's what you're buying at the store when you purchase a Blu-Ray. I fail to see why you expect that the iPhone would take more space than an 1080P HD Blu-Ray disc for a few hours of video. The sensor is more than sufficient to film 720P video, and the example video shown at the demo was impressive to say the least. Time will tell if that holds up for Joe User.
1. It's cool;
2. I just bought an iPad. I don't see anyythng on iPhone 4 that I *need*;
3. My iPhone 3G does what I need a phone to do;
4. Ergo, I'm not digging re-upping with ATT for another 2 years to get a iPhone 4.
5. I'm in wait mode. Rule of tech upgrade applies - buy when you need it, not before.
I do hope (and rather expect) the iOS 4 will run on my iPad. Will find out in a couple weeks. Given it is the same A4 chip, I expect it to run essentially all the features of iPhone 4. Purely a guess though. I do expect further word on the tethering issue though. Curious to see how that plays out.
Yes I do. I honestly do.
Always amazes me when forum posters (people whose time and expertise is so highly valued that they donate their knowledge free anonymously) think they know more about a (WILDLY successful) business than the people who are paid 6 figures to manage it. If you honestly do, you're honestly clueless.
That's so WEIRD! You NEVER hear of salesmen saying things like that!
Yes. And there are several methods to do that. The backlit sensor is a major feature. Sony first came out with these for their D-SLR's. People don't understand how a sensor works. The circuits are actually ABOVE the sensing sites. This technology reverses the chip, making it more sensitive, as the light doesn't have to go through those layers.
Apple may be using a slightly larger chip as well. I believe I read that about this chip. In addition, Canon, and others, are making chips with less dead space between the sensing sites, allowing the sites to be larger.
I've followed this a tiny bit -- enough to be dangerous and realize that some of the Nonsense about "pixel resolution" and brightness (in a dark room) is great on paper -- but the Apple tech is getting much better in practice.
It's hard to say without looking at the specs if you are talking about the camera sensors or the display screen. And interestingly, Apple has been using Camera sensor tech in their displays and vice versa. Pretty soon, the screens will be very, very close to camera sensors themselves.
The larger sensors, mean better light and color recognition IF, you have an aperture getting enough light to them. So, on average, with the SAME technology, a 1" sensor is going to be superior to a 3/8" sensor almost every time. People have gotten all excited about 5 and 12 megapixel cameras but they are lots of extra pixels of interpolated junk.
I really like that Apple seems to really recognize quality, and they are going for good tradeoffs (overall) in price and performance vs. battery life. I'm just hoping that MAYBE, they'd offer a "plugged-in" mode. Because these iPads and iPhones are going to have lots of places to at least be near a socket. The battery life is awesome and completely necessary on the road -- but more than half the time -- I am somewhere playing a game or editing something and I'd go for really bright display and more speed.
The "micro-napping" on the CPU itself and the display could probably have a non-economy mode relatively easily - and I wish Apple would allow for developers to have a toggle that the OS controlled of "Economy and Performance" -- just make it a system-wide two-state option.
I also wonder how much simpler it will be to get your music on a Droid than an iPhone, if it's too much work to use a playlist setup on iTunes to manage two iOS devices?
I'm not planning to put music on a Droid. That'll have to stay on the iPod.
Rather than go into exhaustive detail, I'll just say that my music collection is extensive, 3 playlists cover most of it (something like 99%), and iTunes says I have more than 44 GB of audio files on my iPod. (I have very broad musical tastes.) One of my goals is to not spend a lot of time managing files.
I looked back at the history of the iPhone and iPod since they were introduced. Based on the past, I think we can expect no intermediate memory upgrades, and 64GB iPhones next June, followed by 128GB iPods in September 2011. Though I was hoping that after 3 years, Moore's Law of doubling every 18 months would have kicked in for this round of updates.
Always amazes me when forum posters (people whose time and expertise is so highly valued that they donate their knowledge free anonymously) think they know more about a (WILDLY successful) business than the people who are paid 6 figures to manage it. If you honestly do, you're honestly clueless.
With this "Money = value of opinion" metric ... Well, then how could the Zune have ever failed?
I get your point, but there are plenty of times when "from the mouths of babes" is something that 6 figure salary people need to remember.
I make a 7 figure salary, by the way, but that's with 2 digits to the right of the decimal point in mathematical precision. People often don't consider the common cents.
Are you now suggesting that these other phone manufacturers are the game-changers?
Where Apple continue to excell is what Steve Jobs refer to as the meeting (or intersection) of "Technology and Liberal Arts" in the design and the conceptualization of Apple products, under the tutelage of Steve Jobs.
Achieving this requires subtlety and finesse, it requires a mindset the whole is not a simple summation of the parts (or as you love to call -- features). A flash of features with no unity is simply ostentatious.
Simplicity is virtue when the heart and soul of the creator comes forth.
You can experience this intersection of "Technology and Liberal Arts" if you are immersed in the Apple ecosystem. What is derided as the "walled garden" in the iOS ecosystem is actually one of the strengths of that ecosystem. The freedom from being exposed to limited risk of exposure to) spams and malwares encourages those who embrace the iOS ecosystem to venture. Thus, instead of being imprisoned, they discover new worlds beyond their horizon.
Sure there are limits, but any developer -- of any age and from all parts of the world -- with something to share will more than likely be allured by the vast target -- 100 million iOS devices.
CGC
Nice speech. You've read way too far into my post. I'm just saying that we have to be fair to both sides. Give credit where credit is due. A device/feature doesn't have to be "game changing" to count. If another device had it before, it had it before.
The original post I responded to made it seem like the features shown today were all ground-breaking and new. I just simply corrected him. The gyroscope and the screen were what I personally thought were the newest of new features. Everything else have already been around for a while. Apple just happened to polish them up nicely.
Always amazes me when forum posters (people whose time and expertise is so highly valued that they donate their knowledge free anonymously) think they know more about a (WILDLY successful) business than the people who are paid 6 figures to manage it. If you honestly do, you're honestly clueless.
I expanded on my answer to make my position more clear. Please read what I wrote and reconsider your very rude answer. We are all Apple fans here and there is no need for name calling. Grow up.
I've followed this a tiny bit -- enough to be dangerous and realize that some of the Nonsense about "pixel resolution" and brightness (in a dark room) is great on paper -- but the Apple tech is getting much better in practice.
It's hard to say without looking at the specs if you are talking about the camera sensors or the display screen. And interestingly, Apple has been using Camera sensor tech in their displays and vice versa. Pretty soon, the screens will be very, very close to camera sensors themselves.
The larger sensors, mean better light and color recognition IF, you have an aperture getting enough light to them. So, on average, with the SAME technology, a 1" sensor is going to be superior to a 3/8" sensor almost every time. People have gotten all excited about 5 and 12 megapixel cameras but they are lots of extra pixels of interpolated junk.
I really like that Apple seems to really recognize quality, and they are going for good tradeoffs (overall) in price and performance vs. battery life. I'm just hoping that MAYBE, they'd offer a "plugged-in" mode. Because these iPads and iPhones are going to have lots of places to at least be near a socket. The battery life is awesome and completely necessary on the road -- but more than half the time -- I am somewhere playing a game or editing something and I'd go for really bright display and more speed.
The "micro-napping" on the CPU itself and the display could probably have a non-economy mode relatively easily - and I wish Apple would allow for developers to have a toggle that the OS controlled of "Economy and Performance" -- just make it a system-wide two-state option.
This is more than a bit complex, and I don't know just how far you want to get into it. The sensors for phones are tiny. Really tiny. The sensing sites are tiny. We saw the number; 1.75 um. Even high rez cameras with APS C sensors have sites that are far larger, at 5 um. Sensing sites for most compact digital cameras are between 2.25 and 2.75 um.
Given the same lens, anything that can be done to keep those sites the same size as resolution goes up, would be welcome. A slightly larger sensor requires a slightly larger coverage lens. More expense. The lens also has to be of higher quality with more pixels.
It was considered, years ago, that up to about 3 MP, lens quality wasn't that important, because even a cheap lens would manage quite well. But at 5 MP, the lens has to be better.
Given the same "f" stop, anything that increases sensitivity of the sensor would also be welcome. Backlit sensors are a breakthrough. I'm happy Apple is using one. The one they are using is the only one available for camera phones right now. But Apple isn't exclusive. It could be sold to other phone makers.
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Pr...69E/index.html
I have intermingled some comments and questions where appropriate.
I see this phone as being far ahead of whatever's out there now. Do I see it as revolutionary? Well, yes, in a way I do.
What we've been seeing is that when Apple implements a feature, it becomes an important feature to have. It becomes used. When other companies have introduced the same features, we haven't seen that. One reason is as Jobs has said, Apple sweats the details. They get it right. Android phones have a fair amount of poorly thought out features. The OS is still wonky and crude. It's not just my opinion, but the opinion of even the reviewers in many cases, even if they liked the phone. The same thing is true of the hardware. As I said, a crappy 5 MP camera, which is what these other phones mostly have, isn't impressive. If this camera proves to be as good as it looks to be, then it will make a major difference. The same thing is true of the 720p recording. I've seen that on a couple of other phones, and it's not very good. If Apple's 5 times zoom works in movie mode, it could be spectacular, if it works the way I think it might. We can look to the 5 MP sensor for that. You only need 921,600 pixels for 720p. We've got almost 6 times that. Zooming to 5x will still leave us with more than we need. It will remain sharp throughout the entire zoom range.
Can you elaborate on this? I have a Panny hdc-sd1 that has 12x Optical Zoom and beaucoups Digital Zoom.
Mostly, I use the cam to capture the grandkids soccer games and I usually sit at midfield -- so the action is up to 50 yds away. The 2-5x Optical is fine for most cases, so I seldom use the digital... there are times tho, where I want to zoom on the face or legs of a player-- goalkeep, free kick, corner kick, etc.
Are you saying that this new iPhone camera system has the possibility of equalling a 5x optical zoom? If so, that's big... really big!
This phone can actually be a substitute for the $150 and cheaper digital cameras that people still buy in large numbers. That would be revolutionary. But, even now, iPhones are the biggest contributor to Facebook pictures.
It reminds me of the 8 hour recording time that VHS has in relation to the 5 hour record time of Beta. It sucked. It really wasn't useable. This is like a lot of the features of other phones. The features exist, but they aren't good. Apple's are good. Yes, I know that Beta died out. But Apple isn't Sony, and the iPhone isn't a Beta machine.
Ahh... the VHS- BetaMax wars. My Dad was an audiophile. Hie built his own Hi-Fis, Speakers (Stuff like base-crossover circuitry, folded horns- small night-stand-size devices where the sound emerged at the back and bottom from an internal folded-horn then used the walls and ceiling of the corners of the room to complete the effect. He could make a candy dish jump off a marble coffee table on the other side of the room. Anyway, we would argue, and he would prove to me (audibly, and visually on an oscilloscope) that BetaMax was vastly superior..
But, AIR, the thing that won the war was the early formats were limited to 1 hr BetaMax vs 2 hr VHS... You could program your VCR to tape a 1-2 hr movie on TV with VHS. You had to be there [to switch tapes] with Beta! Convenience trumped quality!
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I'm willing to bet that Apple's video calling will be used, while that of others won't. That makes that feature, on the iPhone, revolutionary.
The OS is better too. Apple now has covered the features other phones were offering in more poorly functioning fashion. 7 hours for 3G talk. What other smartphone comes close to that? The highest rated Android models all have fairly poor battery life. 40 hours music. Who else has that?
It's the totality of the package that matters. If you want to pick out a feature out here and there from other phones, that's fine. But it tells you nothing about the whole experience. And in that, this phone is revolutionary, as have the older ones been.
I see people who don't like Apple on other sites going meh about this, but that's just because it's an Apple product. I pay no attention to it.
AT&T's plans now cost less than they did. The difference may not be all that much. Sprint and T-Mobile offer slightly cheaper plans because they aren't doing that well, and have no choice.
I'm not planning to put music on a Droid. That'll have to stay on the iPod.
Rather than go into exhaustive detail, I'll just say that my music collection is extensive, 3 playlists cover most of it (something like 99%), and iTunes says I have more than 44 GB of audio files on my iPod. (I have very broad musical tastes.) One of my goals is to not spend a lot of time managing files.
I looked back at the history of the iPhone and iPod since they were introduced. Based on the past, I think we can expect no intermediate memory upgrades, and 64GB iPhones next June, followed by 128GB iPods in September 2011. Though I was hoping that after 3 years, Moore's Law of doubling every 18 months would have kicked in for this round of updates.
I guess I just don't understand the logic path.
iPhone doesn't have 64 GB, so you can't fit your whole music collection on it (though you could fit 75% of it). So the solution is to switch to a Droid, which also doesn't have 64 GB, and putting NO music on the phone. How is that a better solution than having 75% of your music in your pocket at all times?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHngLJ0RlNg
I expanded on my answer to make my position more clear. Please read what I wrote and reconsider your very rude answer. We are all Apple fans here and there is no need for name calling. Grow up.
Sorry, but really believing that there's a single soul at Apple who doesn't know that ATT is generally considered a problem is totally clueless.
I guess I just don't understand the logic path.
iPhone doesn't have 64 GB, so you can't fit your whole music collection on it (though you could fit 75% of it). So the solution is to switch to a Droid, which also doesn't have 64 GB, and putting NO music on the phone. How is that a better solution than having 75% of your music in your pocket at all times?
The lack of a 64GB iPhone means that instead of going to 1 device, I'm going to have to use 2 devices, whether I put anything on the phone or not. So one will continue to be my existing iPod which can already handle all the audio storage I'm using. The other device will be a phone plus a few other functions.
Sorry, but really believing that there's a single soul at Apple who doesn't know that ATT is generally considered a problem is totally clueless.
Glad to hear a fellow poster admitting AT&T is a problem. We have come a long way in three years.
But if Apple knows it's a problem and continues to do exclusive business with them, then who is the one that needs to get a clue?
As far as I am concerned, I am neither an AT&T booster, nor a Verizon booster. This is not a football game and I am not a cheerleader. I didn't ask to buy an iPhone based on AT&T's coverage map and then find out I don't have coverage. Now I know and since no Verizon phone is forthcoming, I am getting out. Nothing personal against Apple, AT&T or you Mr. Cameron. (I love your movies by the way)
I need a phone that makes phone calls. It's that simple. Peace.
I'm not planning to put music on a Droid. That'll have to stay on the iPod.
Rather than go into exhaustive detail, I'll just say that my music collection is extensive, 3 playlists cover most of it (something like 99%), and iTunes says I have more than 44 GB of audio files on my iPod. (I have very broad musical tastes.) One of my goals is to not spend a lot of time managing files.
I looked back at the history of the iPhone and iPod since they were introduced. Based on the past, I think we can expect no intermediate memory upgrades, and 64GB iPhones next June, followed by 128GB iPods in September 2011. Though I was hoping that after 3 years, Moore's Law of doubling every 18 months would have kicked in for this round of updates.
It is possible that, before next June, Apple will make available a means of streaming your entire iTunes music library to your iDevice. If it works well and doesn't cost much, this would reduce the need for many people (and you) to have such large memory capacity. This is something to consider before you buy an Android phone.
... and where are all of those 'Apple would never design something that looks like that lost iPhone' naysayers from last month now?
Probably in the same place as those "Who cares about a flash with a camera phone?" naysayers. And the "Who cares about multitasking?" naysayers. And the "Who cares about copy and paste?" naysayers. But those naysayers will try to backtrack and claim that they never dismissed those features, and that they have always liked Apple to add them.