Seeing with a critical 'i' - Things that make iPhone 4 great
There is no denying for the slightest of bit that Apple iPhone 4 has jumped over everything that has been and is around us at this point in time. But like all good comes followed by suspicion and scrutinizing critical eyes, iPhone 4 too has the tendency treading behind its each little stride. There are critics and there are those competitors who’d have their tails up to keep Jobs’ and Co. thinking still, but that’s their work we’d say. Yet, for all who think it’s important to know of what make iPhone 4 a deal that it is, we’ve highlight some prominent features for your consideration before you lay hands onto one of Apple’s best incarnation to date.
• Retina Display
The iPhone 4 has the same 3.5-inch screen (as the 3GS) but here with an impressive high definition aspect. It’s an IPS 960×640 display offering 800:1 contrast ratio, Apple calls this a ‘Retina Display’, it’s rated a 326ppi, something none of us have ever seen before and as Apple claims, is beyond the human eye’s limit of distinction. The IPS technology used for the screen reduces the amount of glare on the screen. The display is covered by a dual layer of aluminosilicate glass, which makes it more scratch resistant being about 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic. The Retina display is highest resolution display ever, which adds graphic clarity and quality to let you see text as clearly as on a fine printed sheet of paper.
The critic eye:
Thought everyone may agree that the iPhone 4’s screen is the best mobile display yet, Raymond Soneira, President DisplayMate Technologies, thinks the displays resolution doesn’t really exceed the human retina, as Steve Jobs claims. Raymond explains that it is close to being the perfect display but the iPhone 4’s Retina Display may be a misleading marketing gimmick by Jobs. According to Jobs iPhone 4 has a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch; this resolution exceeds the limit of the human retina, which Jobs said was 300 pixels per inch for a display about a foot away. But explaining why Raymond thinks this account isn’t correct he says:
“It was inaccurate to measure the resolution of the eye in terms of pixels, because the eye actually has an angular resolution of 50 cycles per degree. Therefore, if we were to compare the resolution limit of the eye with pixels on a screen, we must convert angular resolution to linear resolution. After conversions are made, a more accurate “retina display” would have a pixel resolution of 477 pixels per inch at 12 inches, Soneira calculated.”
• Face Time
The iPhone 4 has a front facing camera for video calling and video chat. Called ‘FaceTime’ the feature is only possible over Wi-Fi, which for now works from iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 only. The iPhone 4 also 5MP LED flash camera on the back which offers an improved video-shooting capabilities, it packs a 720p camcorder that shoots at 30fps. The iPhone 4's camera may not be the best in the megapixel war, but is unique because of its back-illuminated sensor, the feature which greatly increases the camera’s sensitivity in low light. FaceTime works immediately without any special account or screen name. Let’s say you want to start a video call with your best friend. “Just find her entry in your Contacts and tap the FaceTime button. Or maybe you’re already on a voice call with her and you want to switch to video. Just tap the FaceTime button on the Phone screen. Either way, an invitation pops up on her iPhone 4 screen asking if she wants to join you. When she accepts, the video call begins. It works in both portrait and landscape modes.”
The critic view
The FaceTime videoconferencing is available on Wi-Fi at the moment, and is only possible from iPhone 4 to iPhone 4. Steve Jobs says Apple would be soon working with carriers to support it on 3G.
• Form factor Engineering
Phone 4 is lighter, more powerful and thinner than any other phone on the block. The iPhone 4 has a delightful anti-scratch glass coating on the back and the front, with stainless steel band around the phone that’s stuffs inside the two antennas and acts as the main structure of the phone. The left portion of the steel band handles signal reception for WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS, while the right side of the band provides increased GSM and UMTS/HSDPA reception. The front and back glass on the iPhone 4 is recyclable aluminosilicate glass (same used on helicopter and highspeed train windshields), which is easily 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic, add all that robustness to the display. The iPhone 4 has separate buttons for volume up, down and mute on the side which makes using it easier for the user. A secondary mic is also added for noise suppression.
The critical take
iPhone’s reception has never always been considered great, a reason the stainless steel band around the phone with two antennas inside address the issue of better reception. But iPhone’s receptions issues continue to bother, right on the release day, Jobs' wasn’t able to connect to Wi-Fi for demonstration, 'perhaps because of the wireless network being overloaded.'
To check the solidity of the iPhone 4, repair specialists iFixyouri proceeded to drop (an acquired pre-released iPhone 4) it a few times. On the third trip down from 3.5 feet they heard a loud popping sound and the iPhone 4 was in shatters.
• A4 Processor
For all good reasons known, the iPhone 4 has been stuffed in with A4 CPU the same on the iPad. Manufactured by Samsung, Apple A4 processor is based on the ARM processor architecture and runs 1GHz, that’s almost 67x increase over Cortex processor used in the iPhone 3GS. Besides the blistering power and remarkable efficiency, the mobile processor offers a major improvement to battery life, and supports features like multitasking, video recordings at 720p. The A4 processer gets the iPhone 4 to have a better battery life still keeping the phone nearly 25% thinner. Though battery life depends on the iPhone 4’s settings, usage and other concerning factors, the built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery of the iPhone 4 guarantees extended battery life to 7 hours of 3G talktime , 6 hours of browsing, 10 hours of Wi-Fi, 40 hours of music, and 300 hours of standby.
The critic power out
It’s known that the battery on the previous iPhone’s including the iPhone 3GS actually sucks, so it was really up to Apple to improve on this concern. With the larger battery in the iPhone 4 touting to provide 40 percent more talktime than the 3GS, its hoped the the poor battery life is a thing of the past of the iPhone, and it is up there with the best in competition.
• iOS4
The iPhone 4’s most promising facet is the new iPhone OS which is now called the iOS4. The killer platform makes way for multitasking, the universal inbox and numerous other petty inclusions that rely on multitasking to function. Besides multitasking (where by users can switch between apps efficiently) the iOS4 boasts of hundreds of new features including Folders, enhanced Mail and the Apple’s new mobile advertising platform. Managing folders is easy, user just simply drags an app into the collection, the system automatically creates a folder and names it based on the apps in it, which is alterable of course.
The critic voice
The introduction of the iOS4 would now require developers to submit new and updated apps to be able to multitask. These have to be approved by Apple. Further critic voices claim that Apple’s marketing strategy for the iOS4 could be misleading, because from 200,000 available apps only a few would be able to multitask that too not from the very first day of the iPhone 4 release.
• iAds
The iPhone 4 has introduced a new mobile advertising platform called the iAd that runs on the iOS4. This mobile advertising network that would debut on July 1 would allow developers to earn revenue by serving ads in low cost apps. The main facet of the iAds is the fact that it combines TV advertising with interactive Internet ads allowing Apple to bar Google, Microsoft and other from carrying ads on the iPhone. The iAds would offer a new way to explore ads which would keep the user on the same app he/she’s using without hijacking the user out of the app link in other ads, then weather it’s while the users watching a video, or he’s playing a game or even using in-ad purchase to download an app or buy iTunes content for that matter.
The critic opinion
Rob Master, North American media director in appreciation of the iAds says iAds would revolutionize mobile advertising. Could we agree more to it?
• iMovie app iBook
For video editing Apple has a custom version of the iMovie app, which can be bought from the Apple Store for $4.99, the app lets users assemble and spruce clips and record directly into and iMovie timeline. Users can also add photos from the camera along with title, music and etc to the movies. The iBook app on the other hand would be available as free download from the App Store and would include Apple’s new iBookstore. This to let users browse, buy and read books free on the iPhone 4. iBooks users will also be able to read and store PDFs right in the iBooks. There’ll be about 60,000 books and counting available in the iBookstore.
The critic move
The addition of the ability to download via iBook and iMovie could be a drawback, because not everyone would require this facility and nither do all of us really care for the iBook thing when we can have dedicated e-readers.
• Gyroscope
The iPhone 4 has a built-in gyroscope that’ll provide the mobile device with better sensitivity for more motion gestures, offering better gaming experience to the users. The gyroscope coupled with the existing accelerometer and compass, gives the iPhone 4 six-axis motion sensing, which adds to the respective levels of precision. Sans the physical buttons or joystick etc the game developers have managed to get the best gaming experience to the users with the iPhone’s built-in accelerometer, yet the tilt sensing capabilities and the precision addition with the gyroscope would definitely add a new meaning to gaming on the iPhone. Developers should certainly update their tilt controlled games to benefit from the gyroscope sensor of the iPhone 4. Developers will have access to the gyro using CoreMotion API, which would take gaming on the iPhone 4 well beyond what other mobile phone in the market presently offer.
The critical axis
Certainly the gyroscope would take gaming on the iPhone to a whole new level, but for all non-gamers this would hardly matter, they’d wish for a feature more appropriate to their chore. Also, I am not really sure developing gyroscope-supported games particularly for the iPhone 4 would be financially a great idea for the developers at this point in time.
