iPhone 4: Thoughts and Feelings

Apple has announced the new iPhone 4. As with every other mega-corporation, Apple has had a history of touting their own product as the newest and best thing out there. The iPhone 4 is no exception – but is it truly the be-all end-all? Can it be that Apple finally has the perfect smartphone? Is the iPhone 4 a landmark, or just another ploy to get the average person to buy into Apple products? Let’s investigate.

What are the 5 biggest selling points the new iPhone 4 has to offer?

• High Definition Video
• 5MP camera
• High Resolution Screen
• Multitasking
• Video calls

Seemingly one of the coolest features is the video calling capability of the iPhone 4. It’s seems like it’s a hot tamale, doesn’t it? But this feature isn’t how it seems. It does video calling over Wi-Fi, not AT&T’s network! So if you are in a place with a bad internet connection (or no Wi-Fi signal), then you won’t be able to do video calling. And if you’re in a country where you have to pay for internet per KB, then you can rack up a hefty bill. Making it Wi-Fi may be a safety thing – since more than one person will try video talking while driving down the road (no matter the legalities). And let’s face it, the average person can’t walk and talk and look at his/her phone all at the same time – while gliding along smoothly, meaning the person on the other end will probably have severe motion sickness in about 2 minutes…

Next up is the 5 MegaPixel phone. OK, right off the bat, I have to let you down and explain that this is kind of a farce; a 5MP camera phone is not going to give a high quality image. The lens and sensor combo are just too small to support a decent 5 MegaPixel image. A 2MP picture from a DSLR picture is going to be miles ahead of the iPhone’s image in comparison. There’s a reason why Nikon and Canon use nice big lenses with nice big sensors. The image will be extremely soft due to the sensor size and glass in front of it. But, like so many others offering 5MP from a small phone, Apple will most likely use an “ïmage sharpening” technique to enhance the image, so that it doesn’t look overly soft. As many of you know, in the world of photography, a lot of people refer to image sharpening as “noise”, because of the way it has been sharpened. To make a long story short, in this case 5MP is just another sales-hype number. While it is nice to have a phone that can take pictures, it is not a replacement for a real camera.

The High Resolution screen is cool, but will it be miles ahead of the Droid or HTC Imagio? At 960×640, it will be better, but please don’t think of it as high definition (which would be at least 1280×720 pixels). I think they chose 960×640 to allow for shrinking 1920×1280 images, and possibly 1920×1080 video, without much effort (e.g., speed). It’s a numbers game: 960 x 2 = 1920, which many screens, and especially High Definition (which is 1920×1080), offer that width. Pictures made for 1920 will speedily shrink down to a width of 960 pixels and display on Apple’s iPhone 4 with little effort. One thing to note, Apple is not using the words “High Definition” when referring to the iPhone 4′s screen, but they are using the word High Definition in a lot of other places in reference to the phone. I think this may be a sales gimmick to get people to buy the phone and think it is High Definition, so please don’t get sucked into the marketing hype – read the iPhone 4′s specifications and understand what you are getting into.

With all that said, the average person probably won’t notice enough of a difference between the Droid 854×480 pixel screen and the iPhone’s 960×640 pixel screen to make it a deal-breaker on buying one vs the other, yet the iPhone 4′s screen resolution will be miles ahead of previous iPhones and the Blackberry (Thank God!). I am glad Apple has finally taken the step into better resolution. I just hope all smart phones step up to the plate and offer higher resolution screens (and I can’t wait for someone to finally offer a true High Definition screen!).

Multitasking was always needed. The iPhone was kind of like using MS-DOS so many years ago. We’ll see how good their multitasking is when the iPhone gets into everyone’s hands, but I’m glad Apple has finally done something about the limited useage of their iPhone.

The next big “improvement” is that the iPhone 4 shoots (and edits) High Definition Video. I can’t really see the iPhone giving super high quality video images (see the above paragraph referring to the built-in 5MP camera), so using the term “High Definition video” is probably going to be a stretch. But at 720p, the image may turn out decently, even thought it’s the lowest resolution High Definition. Here’s the thing though, H.264 is a lossy codec and can compress like crazy. If the iPhone 4 is recording to the H.264 codec, it’s going to do so in a way that it won’t choke the iPhone 4′s processor. Which means there will most likely be a lot of image that is getting thrown away. I’m sure Apple will do it at least some sort of justice though (fingers crossed).

One last thing, and it’s something Apple isn’t really talking about as much as they should: the battery allows you video playback on the iPhone 4 of up to 10 hours! That means you can fly from Europe back to the United States (usually an 8-9 hour flight) and watch all the movies you want to watch (not the bad ones that the Airline throws up on their old, broken VGA screens). Even more, you can do it with very little eyestrain due to the iPhone 4′s larger screen (and you can pause the movie and eat your airline food without missing anything). Just a small plus point, but I think Apple should be talking it up just a little more…

So is the iPhone 4 the be-all end-all of smart phones? It’s a nice addition to the list of what all smart phones have to offer, but it’s not the be-all end-all. I’m sure Motorola, HTC, and all the rest will be offering new smart phones by the end of summer (definitely no later than Christmas) that are every bit as good and offer just as much (maybe even more) as the iPhone 4. I’d love to have one, but I don’t think it’s worth switching carriers to AT&T for the next 2 years to get it…

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