As everybody already expected, Apple “unveiled” the new iPhone tonight. It’s called the iPhone 4, and brings the iPhone up to par with what’s already available on other smartphone platforms, hardware wise, while raising the bar on a few specific points (the display, mostly). The company also announced a name change for its mobile operating system – it’s now called iOS. What we didn’t get during this year’s WWDC keynote? News about the Mac, Mac OS X, or the Apple TV. Make no mistake: the iPhone and iPad is where it’s at.
So, what does the iPhone 4 deliver when it comes to new features? Well, we already knew how it would look, so there’s little news there. It comes with a better camera, LED flash, faster processor (the Apple A4), a much improved screen (very high PPI), gyroscope for pitch, roll, and yaw, front-facing camera, and, of course, iOS 4.
The screen is quite interesting. Apple calls it a Retina Display, which means it squeezes four times as many pixels into the same 3.5″ display the iPhone 3GS had. The end result is an astonishing 326 pixels per square inch, delivering extremely crisp and sharp text and images. Current iPhone applications will look a lot better, and of course, developers can optimise their applications for the new display.
The front-facing camera is used in Apple’s version of video chat, which it calls FaceTime. It pretty much works as you would expect video chat to work, and apart from Apple claiming it invented video chat (I’m not making this up), it looks like a very promising technology: Apple is going to submit FaceTime to a standards body.
It’s built on top of SIP, STUN, TURN, ICE, RTP and SRTP (whatever those are). Sadly, but not surprisingly, it uses AAC for audio, and H264 for video. In other words, standards body or no, it will not become an open standard as Steve Jobs claimed on stage (at least, that’s how the live bloggers put it). For now, it’ll be WiFi only, since carriers are not yet ready for 3G video chat.
The iPhone 4 will be made available in 88 countries between June 24 and September, in black and white models, 16GB or 32GB. iOS 4, detailed earlier this year, will be released June 21.
Holy crap. I’ve only been able to scour other websites after I wrote this article, and dear lord, they are all idiots. They all state – without blinking – that FaceTime is built on open standards such as H264.
Even a site like Ars.
How can you win a battle against a patent-encumbered video codec backed by patent troll Larry Horn if even respectable tech news outlets like Ars state that H264 is an open standard?
Pathetic.
Just like we have the “free as in speech” and “free as in beer” phrases, maybe we need “open as in …” ones as well?
The issue is that “free” translates differently depending on recipient language. It may mean “at no cost” or it may mean “libre”. Since “Open” lacks the confusion in translation, we really shouldn’t need the “open as in…” but I fear your joke may become reality; lots of money and power at play and marketing seems often to easily trump quality.
“Open as in…. your Mom’s legs when I pull a tenner out of my wallet! Zing!”
On a more serioius note, yes, it is a sad day indeed.
The funny thing about the FaceTalk is that Jobs was touting it as this awesome new thing. My N900 will do video calling with Skype and over 3G
Thanks for the confirmation. I suspected lack of video was related to the hardware in the older N###. Now if Nokia would get teh N900 into Canada at a reasonable price. I’d even sign the renewal contract if my telco would provide it without customizing the firmware (or without blocking me from reflashing the factory image).
Nokia, Rogers.. customers with open wallets waiting.
Maybe this is open like the old German Democratic Republic was democratic (hint: pre-unification, it was East Germany).
Ars loves posting Apple related news. In their defense, it probably brings in readers that translates into ad revenue. Why bite the hand that feeds?
The word “patent” means “open”. So, yeah, it’s an open standard. You have to licence it to use it, though, which is still way cheaper than what MPEG-2 used to cost.
However, as far as web standards go (in this case, W3C’s HTML5 standard), the word “standard” means “royalty free”.
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/
Thom’s point stands.
Because it is. You are the only one who doesn’t seem to get open doesn’t mean free. Anyone who can pay the license can implement h.264. Its a standard that is governed by a standards body. Can’t see it gettignmore open than that. What it isn’t is free. You have to pay. Tough shit, we live in a world where money makes the world go round.
So what does open really mean? To quote a very smart person (Curly/City Slickers):
Regardless of the above, we will have to agree that for most people using the term “open” in software implies some degree of freedom. h.264 has zero degrees of freedom. Usage of the word “open” is just a marketing ploy, and a very unethical one (in my view). And just to open other directions: PAL, NTSC, … can be considered similar standards and yet are truly open
Thats just your opinion of what the word open is. Open to me implies a standard. One that can be implemented and has been implemented by many people. In H.264’s case they are vendors, but there are open source codecs as well. There are many specs that we use which are not free but are open. HDMI/HDCP is one that comes to mind, manufacturers have to pay licensing fees to implement it but it is a standard that is ubiquitous in the consumer electronics field and is an open spec which any a manufacturer can implement with any degree of success.
Besides other than the licensing issue and patents, what makes h.264 closed? Does it only have one implementation and is controlled by one company? If the licensing fees are payed are you limited as to how you implement it other than the spec itself? You can jump around the issue all you want, but h.264 is open. Its not free but its a standard that can be implemented successfully based off of a spec that was put together by many. Not just by anybody but the ISO/IEC, a well respected standards body.
We are arguing about this now because h.264 is involved but its not the only open standard that is not free. In-fact there are quite a lot of standards that you have to pay a licensing fee to implement. Some of them are as simple as the wall jack your computer is connected to. Its a way of life in the world we live in. I don’t see why the internet has to have any sort of special treatment just because a whole bunch of nerds got their knickers twisted.
I think we need to devise terms that can differentiate between standards that you can freely implement and those you can’t. I don’t think ‘open’ is doing a good enough job to draw that distinction.
Let’s agree to disagree. Obviously, for you it’s OK to use a commercial codec in a standard that is to define how we distribute content on the internet, as long as its specification is published for everybody to see.
For me, this goes deeply against the idea of what internet and web is all about. In my view usage of the term “open” is misleading and only serves the purpose of cheap marketing and creation of confusion. There are many commercial products in the open source world, but they all have a certain degree of freedom (RedHat). h.264 is the antithesis of freedom, and an attempt to establish control over the content (tiered web) and as such is completely unacceptable as part of html5 standard. Companies that are h.264 “pushers†are nothing better then “Hitler’s†and “Stalin’s†of internet. Of course any commercial entity is free to buy, pay and peruse the said codec in any shape or form they see fit, and may as well offer a very good product to consumers, but the line in the sand is HTML5 standard.
It doesn’t matter that you can find other examples of proprietary standards that are accepted by different bodies, because the number of truly open ones far outweighs proprietary ones.
Precisely so. It matters not one whit if H.264 is deemed to be suitable for other roles for other purposes, because it is not royalty-free it violates the W3C policy for their web standards. HTML5 is one such standard, it is a web standard written by W3C. Therefore, H.264 is NOT suitable in this role.
What I find amazing is how incredibly hard this straightforward principle seems to be for the Apple supporters to understand.
All of this is moot.
HTML5 is a W3C web standard. W3C are the authors. W3C have a patent policy for the technical content of their standards … it must be royalty-free.
This is very, very easy to verify.
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/
Therefore, regardless of the suitability of royalty-encumbered technologies in other standards for other roles or purposes, because it requires payment of royalties H.264 is NOT a suitable technology to include in the W3C HTML5 standard. It goes directly against policy.
Pretty simple, really.
Edited 2010-06-08 04:50 UTC
Lol, Thorn, I think something confuse you… H264 _IS_ a standard… an International one. Moreover there’s open-source implementation for years… without any patents here in europe…
I understand that the use of a non-paten-free bugs you, but hey, Apple already have paid for the license and its hardware support h264 already (and not in an undefined future as with some other « open » video codec with without clear specs… but inferior bitrate compression ratio).
H264 is also a Telephony standard (yes like h263, etc) and is actually used in some videophone.
Asterisk can use it if I remember correctly…
Thus I’m pretty sure that you will soon find some apps that will enable SIP call with video (if the apple one don »t already do it).
Thom, an open standard and a free standard are not necessarily the same H.264 is an open standard.
If I say my wedding has an open bar, yet I do make you pay at the bar for each drink, do you still consider it an open bar simply because I’m not stopping you from getting a drink?
An open standard is a standard anybody can implement without the fear of getting sued. Said standard can be covered by RAND royalty fees, but as we all know, MPEG-LA is anything but RAND.
http://www.osnews.com/story/23346/Nero_Files_Antitrust_Case_Against…
To make matters worse, MPEG-LA’s CEO is a known patent troll.
http://www.osnews.com/story/23258/MPEG-LA-owned_Patent_Troll_Sues_S…
Saying H264 is an open standard is intentionally misleading. I can understand Jobs (and thus, Apple zealots) saying H264 is an open standard, but anyone with two functioning braincells to rub together will see right through that smoke.
Comparing the common expression « openbar » and the word « open » in the ISO mean is not serious!! The word « open » come from the 70’s (or even before) at a time when IBM use it’s own « standard » and didn’t publish them.
Now « open » means that is published and the specs (an *complete*) are publicly available, but:
1) It’s not mandatory for the Specs to be free
2) Some patents may affect some parts, in which case some « fairuse » should be attached
So that everyone can use them…
That the case for h264! This codec is part of more general standards.
MPEG-LA is the bad one as you said, not h264!! There are not the owner of the standard!!! They are the proxy of the owners of the patents!!!
The combat here is to have a predictable and clear licensing policy and make sure that such policy respect the « fairuse ».
But again you’re the one who is misleading here!! H264 is an Open Standard by any normalization organization…
At this level, as a journalist you should keep the fact and stop saying false assertion!
But H.264 is not a royalty-free standard.
This means that H.264 is suitable for roles such as digital TV trasmission and Blueray video players, but it is not suitable as a W3C web standard (i.e. HTML5). W3c policy is that its standards are royalty-free.
Theora was originally proposed for HTML5, being the only codec at the time that was open (in that anyone may implement it and license their implementation however they please, not merely a published specification) and royalty-free (no charge to implement it).
Apple and Google vetoed Theora in HTML5. So now, Webm is going to be the only viable candidate. H.264 is NOT going to be the codec for this web standard, and it never was going to be. It simply doesn’t comply with the royalty-free requirement, however much you might wish to quibble about what exactly “open” means.
This isn’t about the W3C or HTML5…this is about FaceTime…a video chat application / protocol.
iPhone doesn’t have a Safari web browser?
The conversation was about facetime, how dense you can you be?
Depends on where you are. In the EU, New Zealand, South Africa and other countries it isn’t since it has a fee associated with it and is not royalty-free (among other things). Same goes for the W3C. Even Microsoft defines an open standard as one being royalty-free.
The main difference between “a standard” and “an open standard” definitions as accepted all over the world but EITF and ITU-T is on fee patent holder can reclaims on standard users. Aka with or without royalties.
So, as H.264 patent holder *can* fee for using it, everybody will agree H.264 is NOT an *open* standard, just a standard.
Everybody but EITF and ITU-T. And, now, Apple.
Openstandard does not equal patent free – I wish some people would get that through their head. Would I like all technologies submitted to a standards body to come with the condition that all patents are transferred to the standards body that allow royalty free implementations? Of course I would but unfortunately would only happen in an ideal world – the reality is that companies make investments, their shareholders want an immediate return on every bit of investment. Whether you like or not, h264 is here to stay – just as Nixon with the guidance of Kissenger realised that you’re better off dealing with the world as it exists – work within it and make the best of a bad situation. People here better wake up and realise that the world sucks and they’re better off productively making it suck less than dreaming they can incite some sort of revolution.
Edited 2010-06-08 05:50 UTC
But H.264 is NOT any part of a W3C web standard, because that goes directly against W3C policy.
HTML5 is a W3C web standard. In this particular case of standard, that DOES happen to mean royalty-free.
H264 is indeed here to stay … but it is for digital TV transmissions, for Blueray players, and if some companies want to cut their throats, for some closed web applications such as a Hulu player, perhaps, and maybe even a restricted-to-one-client-device-only application such as Facetime.
H.264 is NOT, however, part of the HTML5 web standard from W3C. It never was, and it never will be. I wish some people would get that through their head.
Sugar dimples, perky tits, cheeky chops – the W3C has specified no format for the video or audio tag; just as they specify no format for the img tag either. Let the market decide which it prefers. The W3C has no policy regarding the video format being it has decided not to specify the default format.
Then that is their choice; they’ve obviously made those decisions based on a number of factors – you spamming this forum with mouth frothing vitriol isn’t going to change the fact that some vendors see h264 as a great piece of technology that is worth embracing and being used in the products they ship.
I never said it was part of the HTML5 specification so pull your head out of your ass and read peoples comments before posting.
They have a policy alright, and Theora was included as the codec in earlier drafts, because it was the only royalty-free choice.
Apple had a hissy fit, and Google said that Theora was inadequate for the puropses of Youtube, which was true at the time. Since there was no consensus, W3C removed the specification of the codec from the HTML5 draft.
But the HTML5 specification is still in draft. Now that Google themselves have solved their objection, by making WebM/VP8 open in the purist royalty-free sense, then the Google objection is now gone, leave Apple as the sole dissenter.
I would think this would be enough to allow W3C to re-instate a codec within the HTML5 specification, since the spec is still draft. This time Webm/VP8 would be the obvious choice, since it meets all requirements in that it is as good as H.264 in terms of quality/bandwidth, and it is royalty-free. There is no reason for W3C not to specify it now. Apple can go jump.
But it is NOT a web standard, because unlike all other web standards, H.264 is not royalty-free.
Meh. It is not appropriate for “the market to decide”, because the appropriate choice here is what costs the people the least, and not what makes the most money for businesses.
Edited 2010-06-08 06:22 UTC
“Open” in case of MPEG LA obviously mean “open for trolling”.
http://www.mpegla.com/main/Pages/FormPool.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard
Thats pretty much where the confusion about this is coming from, open standards have nothing to do with open source or anything like that, unless that is the context of the conversation. Most open standards are patented, and require licensing fees.
In the case of h.264, licensing is 0.20$ per unit.
Edited 2010-06-09 03:34 UTC
I think we really didn’t have anything Mac OSX related in the keynote as there really isn’t anything to declare. It’s far to early for Mac OSX 10.7 so i don’t know what they could have said. 10.6.4 is only a service pack for SL and i wouldn’t want to waste a keynote on it.
I agree it would have been nice to see something about the AppleTV, i own one and i think they are excellent media devices. Again i don’t know really what i would like to see from a new and improved one apart from a lot more space. Apart from that it does pretty much everything i want it to do, i.e. play music, tv shows and movies on my TV.
The iPhone 4 presentation was incredibly impressive, when i first got an iphone 1st generation it really felt like something from the future. At the time there was nothing else like it. Ive always wanted to do video calling and the implementations so far have been very expensive and pretty crappy in regards to software and quaility of the video. Now (abiet on wifi for 2010) it looks like hi quaility video calling is about to become reality, i can’t wait!!
That with the improved camera with a led flash, HD video recording is a real bonus but i think what really is going to put this phone a cut above the rest is the impressive video editing. I can’t wait to shoot some video, edit, add transitions, add a sound track and then email it off, all on the same device, same day via my phone. WOW!
My last phone had a LED Flash and I got that 3 years ago. My current phone has a five megapixel camera, and that’s low end. 8 mp is available on many handsets. Video calling has been available in the UK since 2003.
People really do believe the Apple party line when it comes to the iPhone. Apple have managed to catch up to what was common three years ago, big whoop. I suppose the American phone market really is that backwater.
+1
I’m from [backwater] South Africa and have enjoyed all those features for a few years now – iPhone and USA only get them now. Shame.
Oh, we’ve already had cameras with flash- optical zoom and autofocus, too, for a while! They just haven’t been famous.
No. The quality of their actual photos and video are just crap. That’s been tested extensively. There is a lot more to quality output than just mega-pixels.
I never said megapixels; I said optical zoom, autofocus, and flash. I agree, an 8 megapixel camera phone is pretty much pointless, and unfortunately people are still buying “more megapixels is better”, when it’s more like the quality of the optics and the electrical noise in the sensor.
So, basically, REM2000’s sentence “it really felt like something from the future” translates to “it really felt like something from overseas”?
I agree, Apple TV should be beefed up. I could see a real nice Tivo like functions built into the ATV which can record brodcasts, it would certainly do away with Tivo and DVD recording. My only saving grace today is I use Philips DVD recorder with 160 Harddrive to record my programs. But Philips and many other box makers dont make them or support such devices. Apple could take make it a recordable device which would take revenue from Tivo and Cable companies.
Might even allow an app to record from your IPAD or Ipod… possibilities are still there.
Apple don’t make money on show you record, they do on those you download, they will never add TiVo like feature.
I’ve been making video calls *on 3G* since 2003.
Hello America.
Apple have made the critical mistake of drinking their own cool aid. This was the most boring keynote they’ve ever done, and as I expected—Mac OS X was not mentioned once. It’s done, over, finito. On life support.
I know the US is a bit behind the times, but I have to say, I’ve never once seen anyone make a video call on a cell phone. Sure I’ve known it was possible, but I’ve never seen it in the “wild.” I have a feeling I’ll be seeing it everywhere now. So what does it matter that “you” were doing it in 2003… The masses weren’t.
As to Mac OS X withering… I think you should stop drinking your own cool-aid. Just what did you want announced about OS X?
A future.
LOL. So true. I don’t think Apple is going to drop OSX anytime soon, but their priorities are definitely elsewhere. My main worry with Apple has always been the pro apps. They don’t seem to be showing the pro market any love nowadays, as they focus on the consumer market. I understand that its where the money is but don’t leave the pros behind.
I heard they are going to massacre FinalCut as they start to transition it into a more consumer oriented product. Hey Apple its called FinalCut LE. Let the people who know what they are doing have the good shit.
Oh please… Was there a tear in your eye as you typed that?
Mac OS X has an 18-24 month release cycle. The 10.6 release went out August 2009 which means 10.7 won’t come out until January – June of 2011.
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That’s because it’s a feature nobody wants video chat/call.
UMTS phones have been able to make video calls for ages here in Italy (since the arrival of ‘3’, H3G) but simply nobody WANTS to use them.
There has been a huge push for YEARS for the videocall as the killer feature of 3G, but nobody cared. When I call someone I want to talk to him, not see him, much less let them see me.
The real killer feature of 3G is obviously internet connectivity and bandwith, but the usb 3G “modems” have only become common during the last couple of years.
The video-call is not even mentioned anymore in the ads because, frankly, it’s a bogus feature.
Edited 2010-06-07 20:39 UTC
I’m sorry, but you’re very wrong. I DO want video calls, and I wanted these video calls since 2003. The key is that I DO NOT want to do these calls via 3G/airtime. I wanted videochat to be free via wifi, and/or at least be part of the “unlimited data” package. But definitely not how it was implemented via the carriers so far. The reason why video chat did not take off all these years is because of the high cost (in Greece it is $1 per minute I think), not because “no one wants it”.
I can assure you that my mom and I, would LOVE it, as she lives in Greece, and I live in the US.
Ok, obviously SOMEBODY wants them, and somebody is probably using them.
But here they have always costed more or less like phone calls (a bit more) and still I’ve never ever heard of someone using them. I’m sure most people with UMTS handsets are not even aware of the purpose of the little front facing camera. I’m a geek, and I noticed it after weeks on my new work-phone.
Internet/wifi video chats are a whole different beasts, in my mind (and I suspect in the general public’s mind here in Italy): if you want to do it you use skype and a computer.
Obviously it’s also the consequence of the hideous cost the data transfers always had here. That’s very slowly changing.
Now they can most likely use skype and an iphone.
Really? You want to do that on a little tiny phone screen?
When our family on the West coast (well, Phoenix) wants to video call our family on the East coast (NYC) we use our computers with much larger screens, better hardware, better internet connection speeds, etc.
Makes for a much nicer call experience.
In South Africa there is no difference it price for Video or Voice calls. My wife phones me often via video call, and it’s really nice [no radiation next to my head].
I have to agree. Young people today have moved from voice-only calls to… texting. The *opposite* direction from video calling.
I’ve had video calling on my N900 since last year, but have rarely used it. I call to talk, not to watch.
Maemo devices have had video chat since 2007 at least if not previous. The only thing stopping me from video calling (over wifi) now is Skype choosing not to provide video in the Maemo 2008 build. Not sure if it’s been added for Maemo5 with the beefier hardware in the N900.
Then I should introduce you to my wife, she uses it a lot. And I thought South Africa was behind in technology, I guess not. 🙂 Oh, and there is no difference between voice or video call price in RSA.
The other benefit of video calls (as I see it), is that you don’t have the phone next to your head, so cell radiation should be much less harmful too.
He wasn’t doing it in 2003. He has been on the record many times since then of saying he hates mobile phones and does not own one. It was just sensationalism to combat sensationalism for sensationalism’s sake
I do own a mobile, only out of necessity for work, and I hate the concept of them and tried to get a phone with the least amount of features and it _still_ had a 5mp camera.
When Jobs stands on the stage and quite happily ignores the entire history of mobile phones and paints a picture that iPhone is the greatest thing ever and implies that nobody else has these features, he’s spouting crap. And people believe him.
Define masses. Go back 3-6 years. Think Japan.
What an incredibly shortsighted comment, Kroc, it’s a total Kroc! (Yeah, I went there!)
Ok, so right now, Apple is doing a major revision of iOS (now they’ve renamed it) about once a year, or at least calling things a major revision. So what of it? It’s a new system, compared to the desktop/server OSX mutation, but sooner or later, it’ll likely end up with a very similar lifecycle to the desktop/server OSX mutation because it has as many features as makes any sense to have. Until then, likely they’ll make major revisions once a year (at least in version number, regardless of what’s actually included: how many things can you really stuff into a phone? I guess we’ll find out over time
) and the desktop/server OSX will go along with something similar to the approximately 2 year major revision cycle it has been going through, which, well, it’s in about the middle of one of those major cycles right now.
So, what does that mean? Apple, unlike Microsoft, isn’t known for revealing all the gory details of what they *THINK* their desktop/server OS will include far in advance to the general public: there’s still enough time for that to remain unspoken to the public, as Apple has done in the past. Remember Apple stating that Snow Leopard cosmetically wouldn’t be too different from the last version, but would be a slimmed-down, more efficiency-optimized version of the OS, with adding in some base features at the low level to base future OS features on? In other words: no, Apple has NOT forgotten OSX, it is NOT on life support. Furthermore, iOS has adopted some of the Snow Leopard features into it, and, it seems, the desktop OS is also getting cross-pollinated as well with things coming from iOS.
Also remember an important thing: Apple’s strategy is to have a whole bunch of connected devices that depend on each other to some degree, or at least the smaller devices rely on a desktop/server system: desktop/server OSX is their preference, and Apple would rather sell the TUE using OSX, or at least the Mac hardware, as they really make their money on hardware, but the OS and TUE sells that hardware, as the hardware by itself just isn’t enough to command the premiums they make on it (ask anyone that thinks Apple just sells cheap PC hardware: whether they do or not, it’s the software, stupid!) so no, your assertions are shortsighted, at best, and don’t become you.
Remember: while this was the WWDC, there’s nothing to state that some event must focus on more than one major item, or even mention minor related items, if it doesn’t fit, at least not within the keynote: there’s only 2 hours allotted to the keynote, which, quite frankly, is more than enough: why would you WANT to go put all sorts of things that break a desired marketing focus? There’s more than enough time to do other events that focus on the other things, at a later time and place!
What would we ever do without your multi-billion dollar proven insight?
I second that, New Zealand with almost half the GDP per capita, population of 4million, and 55 million sheep and we’ve had video chatting for ages as well. Don’t get me started on the f-cked up idea of receiver pays mobile phone policy in the US.
Jesus H Christ, I thought New Zealand was behind the times. Go to the Untied States for a couple of weeks and it is like heading back in time at least 15-20 years. Heard of EFTPOS yet? the ability to use your EFTPOS card from the local pie shop cart with the device hooked up to a mobile phone all the way to the big department store and get cash out when purchasing? then there is the issue of a mobile phone that is a crapshot as to whether you’ll get nationwide coverage.
My god, it reminds me of New Zealand back in the 1980s where there were parts of NZ who still had party lines and manual switchboards!
From http://www.macrumorslive.com/ [macrumorslive.com]
10:39 am Doing a live demo now.
10:39 am Firing up both phones.
10:40 am Zoomed in difference looking at home screen is remarkable. Apple had to get special projectors to show just how good this screen is.
10:40 am Loading up NY Times next.
10:41 am Loading slowly, “networks in here always unpredictable.”
10:41 am Steve asks everyone to get off WiFi to help him out, audience laughs.
10:41 am NY Times still not loading on iPhone 4.
10:41 am Switching to backups.
10:42 am iPhone 4 now on AT&T, all kinds of error messages about not being connected to the internet popping up on iPhone 4.
10:42 am Steve goes back to showing photos.
10:43 am Difference is fairly amazing.
10:43 am iPhone 4 slowly barely loads NY Times.
10:43 am Steve apologizing again.
10:43 am Asks Scott for any suggestions.
10:44 am Someone shouts, “Try Verizon.”
10:44 am Steve concludes demo.
When I read this on the macrumors site it reminded me of Windows 98 blue screening on Bill Gates during a demo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9jOi_Jd2dQ
I liked it more for the “try Verizon” followed immediately by “demo over”.
I’d like to watch the video but it will inevitably be published on Apple’s website in QuickTime and I will be unable to watch it.
How much sense does it make that Apple puts out their commercials and ads for their products that you can only watch using their products. Like they’re not looking to move people over from Windows or Linux.
Ummm….
QuickTime is available for windows. Has been for about a decade. Google is your friend.
OP said “How much sense does it make that Apple puts out their commercials and ads for their products that you can only watch using their products”. Quicktime is an Apple product
Point? Optional software is optional. Thankfully.
Perhaps OSnews should publish videos using Real Player. That’d be awesome. It’s just a download for you, after all.
Nope, QuickTime 1.0 for Windows came out in 1991 if I recall correctly. ’92 at the latest. It came on a nice, white, free CD and after installing for about an hour, you could watch a 30 second clip the size of a stamp on your 15″ CRT. Good times.
Nostalgia’d
http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/technotes/tn/images/tn1074_0…
It reminded me of the Powermac G3 crashing on Steve Jobs during his 1999 Macworld Tokyo keynote.
“Try Verizon!”…..love it. I’d love to know who Jobs fired after he went backstage. Can imagine the hissy fit he threw. You know somebody’s head(s) rolled after that demo.
Considering Google had pretty much the same issue at IO, you’d think Apple would have learned from it.
What? Apple haven’t learned from anything in the last 10 years.
PPI for a 3,5 inch screen with 960×480 is not really that much better than other phones with 3inch 800×480 screens (hence not really astonishing).
I like the antenna stuff and the battery life, but I will only buy one if it can be jailbroken and Android 2.2 runs flawlessly.
No, those OLED screens that pretend to have “854×480” like the Nexus One use a trick… It use color dithering, I.E: not every pixel has full color range, you need to combine multiple pixels to obtain the color you want.
On the other hand the iPhone 4 screen seems to be real 960×480. Thus the display will be a little sharper than the actual NexusOne like phones… but until how many weeks?
Did I say Nexus One or AMOLED?
There are enough normal non-AMOLED screens with 800×480.
Oh, was not aware, can you post some links I didn’t see one yet… just curious.
Well, someone pointed me that the HTC EVO 4G have a full 800×480 rez. I suppose that what it was about… but then I will also point that the IPS LCD is better than even actual OLED screen (thus way btter than the LCD of the EVO one).
Another point: why 960×640 and not 800×480? Because the former is compatible with the 480×320 of the previous iPhone…
The 2007 Toshiba G900 for example, but there are a lot of those.(Many of those with crappy MS WinMo, but the displays are high ppi)
http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/products/mobilephones/overview/xper…
Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 has an 854×480 screen, and it’s not an AMOLED screen.
many errors here. at the moment, 800×480 are AMOLED screens. 854×480 (real 16:9 aspect) are usually normal LCD ones…
basically, Nexus One/Desire (800×480 AMOLED) vs Milestone/Droid (854×480 LCD).
AMOLED are the ones with half pixel resolution at red and blue channels (but full resolution in green channel)… but AMOLED displays has better “black” than LCD ones (including the new IPS display for iPad and iPhone4).
I would like to see a comparison of that with Samsung’s new Super AMOLED screens. Especially on the Galaxy S (i9000).
About the only thing I learnt was a few brand names, and that iPhone 4 will have a gyroscope.
Thrilling.
Shame that their video chat is incompatible with existing 3G video equipped phones. On the plus side they are using higher quality codecs than existing standards I guess, and their protocols are internet-oriented rather than 3G-network-only. Perhaps the higher quality will help encourage more people to use it. Certainly making it wifi only initially may help, since one of the factors with people not placing video calls was the prohibitive pricing the networks made.
Right now there’s loads of phones here in the UK that can make video calls, but I don’t know anybody here who has ever made or received one. The only people I know who I’m told regularly place (and receive) video calls are my ex-wife’s family in Korea – grandparents thus get to see their granddaughter more frequently than would otherwise be practical. Here in the UK (and in the USA) since hardly anybody places video calls it makes little difference that Apple are pioneering a new standard, but in places where video calling has taken off it’s short-sighted to not support the existing standard.
Why?
You kind of make my point. 3G video call support exists but isn’t used by anyone, so why bother supporting an unused standard when you can support standards that are in large scale use across multiple platforms?
The point I made was that whilst it may be true that in the UK and the USA almost nobody makes 3G video calls, this is not universally true in every territory.
As I said in my post, people in Korea do use video calls on their phones. There’s a lot of people in Korea. Apple even sells the iPhone there.
The world is bigger than the U.S. And the U.S. mobile arena hasn’t exactly been a world leader technology-wise (let alone pricing &co. but that’s another issue).
What does the U.S have to do with it? Name a country where 3G video calls are common place (you may have South Korea as has already been mentioned). Name all the countries with significant mobile phone infrastructure where they aren’t. The latter will vastly outnumber the former. The networks across Europe paid large sums of money for 3G spectrum and tried to push video calls. They failed.
I wasn’t really wowed at all.
If the iPhone was steaming youtube in summer ’08, not sure why streaming from some different site is anything revolutionary or even remarkable, except for the fact that they “allow” it now.
Netflix will probably be a huge draw, but streaming video has been around for awhile.
Farmville is keynote worthy?
So if Google perfects their video chat in Gtalk, they’ll now be banned from releasing an app for it on iPhone. I think I now understand why Google is stressing about giving the browser access to certain hardware (with user permission). Why build apps when the website works perfectly.
I would expect Gtalk to be banned yes. The question in this instance would be “Who cares?”. If Gtalk uses open standards then the systems will interoperate without a problem, SIP, RTP etc.
Why build apps when the website works perfectly? Same answer I’ve been giving for well over a decade. Web apps suck. They don’t work perfectly.
Have you seen Farmville’s usage numbers? Sure it’s worthy.
Even mainstream media reports of new iPhones. Mainstream media consumers love Farmville.
Yeah, but its not cool. Its universally reviled by the hipsters that buy apple products. It the equivalent of Gucci releasing a line of Mom Jeans.
GTalk doesnt have video chat. The web hybrid (bastard) based version does … all said and done, Goggle refuse to update GTalk, and it’s been dead for … over a year now.
When Google decide to actually update Gtalk (app, not web crap), then we’ll have news.
Maybe the desktop app doesn’t have video chat, but the N810/N900 client has it and I suspect the Android client supports it as well. Also, Pidgin can do video chat on the desktop, although Adium apparently has not been able to get it ported yet ( http://trac.adium.im/wiki/VoiceAndVideo ). Google’s GTalk client is likely not a priority because most people just use the web client and those who want to use a desktop application can find some other Jabber client to use.
I hear that the new phone will also integrate a cure for AIDS and fix the financial problems that are hitting Greece too. And further down the road they’re supposed to integrate world peace in there somewhere as well.
Is it just me, or does anyone else out there get really sick and tired of hearing about how “wonderful” Apple is? For goodness sakes, it’s just a freakin’ telephone!
Telephone? Dear chap, the telephone function wasn’t mentioned once. It’s FaceTime now. The iPhone only makes phone calls for backwards compatibility with outdated models.
Damn! So those R&D guys were serious when they said that teleportation was on the drawing board for this device! Those crazy Trekkies were right too! But with these capabilities, what will Apple call it? The iCorder or the iBeam? I’m in favor of calling it “He’s dead Jim”.
Edited 2010-06-07 20:19 UTC
“Telephone? Dear chap, the telephone function wasn’t mentioned once. It’s FaceTime now. The iPhone only makes phone calls for backwards compatibility with outdated models.”
So what would it cost to buy AT&T right now. The only way to fix the company would be for Apple to buy them and get things straightened out.
Actually, wouldn’t it be amazing if Apple did that. Basically saying that if you want to create something you have to own it. It would be the same as Microsoft buying Dell. The weak point on the iPhone is definitely AT&T.
RE: Comments about Greece and AIDS…
Yes – they are creating apps for that and putting iAds in them. They get 60 percent of ad revenue and 70% of all program revenues. Hey, they will be making more profit than they have now.
That’s an excellent point. Maybe I should write a useless app with iAds and ask people to contribute to my favorite charity….me! Of course Apple would only want 70%! What a bargain!
Please read before you post. Apple takes 30% not 70%.
Hey, read your own post. You say in your earlier post that they get 60 percent of ad revenue and 70% of all program revenues. So if i wrote an app and sold it thru the iSore, oops, I mean the iStore, they’d get 70% of the revenue based on info YOU provided.
Edited 2010-06-07 20:44 UTC
Cisco must be pissed.
Agreed ready for the next round of litigation news. iOS I imagine will be defended by Cisco as a brand.
It’s not like every tech company that has any connection to the Net does not already know that Cisco has had the name IOS for its OS for years. Is there any question now that Apple must consider itself untouchable when it shamelessly steals ideas and technology?
This is just about as bad as ITIL.
Didn’t they do the same with Iphone and shamelessly pilfer the name only to later settle with Asus or whomever it was?
(edit): there it is.. Linksys mentioned below.
Edited 2010-06-07 22:43 UTC
“Cisco has agreed to license the iOS trademark to Apple for use as the name of Apple’s operating system for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad,” said Cisco spokeswoman Kristin Carvell. “The license is for use of the trademark only and not for any technology.”
source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/198203/with_ios_apple_gets_the_ok_to…
You beat me to it. I guess there should be a lawsuit coming up, but we already had something similar between the two, Linksys (a Cisco subsidiary) had an iPhone before Apple did. I never really heard what happened after.
If not Cisco as a company, networking technicians working on Cisco will likely be.
Think now of googling for some technical insight on IOS-on-routers and finding instead pages of rambles on the jobsian fruit.
In the Engadget FaceTime demo, they first CALLED (via GSM/3G) the other person, and then they switched to video via WiFi. Does that mean that every time I want to Facetime I have to actually call someone, and pay my carrier money for the duration of the call (minus the data)?
Because if yes, that sucks. Why burn out my minutes, when the video chat app requires just wifi?
It’s about ease of use and ubiquity. Everyone who has a phone has a friend list – your address book – and can contact the friend (by calling them). If the friend has a video phone (ala the Apple ‘standard’) they can initiate a video call.
If you have to set it up to use a different network, invite all your friends to that network, and can only establish a connection when the friend is online video calling on a phone would be a non-event.
No doubt, given a few months, you’ll be able to install skype (or whatever) and it will support the same type of video calling as FaceTime for those who are more savvy.
What I would like to know if this will work across networks? I mean, will I be able to use AT&T to establish a video call link to my in-laws in Japan.
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Edited 2010-06-07 23:24 UTC
1. Apple screen hardware is improved and best out there!
Comments) Yeah but its not THAT much better!
2. Apple has better processor.
Comments) Yeah well, ABOUT TIME!
3. Apple will have video chat.
Comments) Oh YEAH! Well in Europe EVERY phone has it already!
4. New gyroscopic hardware.
Comments) Who cares!
5. Apple cures cancer.
Comments) Apple sucks! Everyone has to die SOME time.
I mean, seriously. Look at the comments on the ZFS article… “oh who cares… ZFS is soooooo passe!”
You know… Apple made improvements and people bitch about the improvements. And this from people who have complained that Apple hardware is so behind the times and not equal to other phone manufacturers.
ZFS is being brought in native, people bitch that it’s old skool and who needs it now, we have btrfs! And that from people who are FOSS where I would expect the more options the merrier.
It’s like my kids… they complain if we serve the same old thing and then when my wife cuts loose and whips up some exotic meal you could only find in the Mediterranean they complain that it’s too exotic.
Apple cures cancer.*
* Not available on AT&T
LOL! You won that round.
Brilliant comment! 😀
Well, personally, I won’t care much about features packed in, until they won’t come down with the prices. E.g. in central Europe it’s not uncommon to see iPhone 3GS 16GB with 1 year signing to be around $550 (2 year ~$350). Even if it cures cancer, I don’t care.
Too true.
Without a contract in Poland a new 32GB 3GS goes from ~800USD to as high as 1100USD!
You can get a Nokia N900 for about ~500USD and a relatively cheap Android phone like Samsung i5700 for ~180USD.
Seriously, WTF is that? This “i” bullshit is getting annoying. Apple can kiss my iAss, I’ll pass on getting any of their mobile devices.
Edited 2010-06-08 06:44 UTC
Let’s ignore for a moment that video calls existed ages before Apple rebranded it yesterday, and arguably through a better implementation since it could work over a low-speed 3G connection and did not require to first make a voice call before switching to “video mode”.
It’s interesting to note that, though technologically advanced and certainly much hyped by carriers, video calls can easily be seen as an inferior mean of cellphone communication, compared to, say, texting :
-> Availability : in low-density places where voice calls are completely garbled and video calls are impossible, texts work fine because they only require transmitting a few kB of data
-> Privacy : a text communication remains somewhat private, because it goes through tiny characters on your screen which your neighbors in the bus hardly see without some concentration. When someone makes a voice call, one can clearly hear the conversation even if he/she doesn’t want to. With video calls, the conversation is even more audible (because of the increased distance between the mouth and the mic and between the ear and the speaker, fixing this requiring buying a somewhat expensive and encumbering bluetooth headset), and you get a picture of the caller for free through the marvelous IPS viewing angles ^^
-> Intrusion : when you want to communicate something to somebody, you’re not necessarily ready to let him/her know where you are, what you’re doing at the same time, and so on. Texting enables one to focus on the conversation subject rather than that look on your face or whatever.
-> Battery life : this is self-explanatory, I think.
-> Multiplexing : You can easily chat through text with several people simultaneously or send an information to several people at once. However, video call require you to stay constantly concentrated on the one you’re talking to. Hence it’s much, much worse when you want to communicate something quickly because you’re busy.
Edited 2010-06-08 08:17 UTC
Inferior until your wife calls you and you can watch your 10 month old walk for the first time. But you’re right, texting is the way to go w/ minutia. Amazing how much the carriers gouge us on that art form.
*goes into extreme advocacy* What about video MMS or e-mail ? =p
Okay, it lacks some instantaneousness somehow ^^
Yes, SMS pricing is closely related to theft. I’m very addicted to text so I got unlimited texting, but wow… €26 for that ? (Okay, I’ve got 1h30 of voice credit for that price, but I happen not to need more than half of that…)
Edited 2010-06-08 16:12 UTC
It’s built on top of SIP, STUN, TURN, ICE, RTP and SRTP (whatever those are).
SIP – Used to set up(negotiate) “calls”(ie media streams between two end-points.
STUN, TRUN and ICE – Used for firewall traversal.
RTP – “real-time” media transport.
SRTP – secured version of the above.
All are open standards(IETF)
Rogers in Canada has had video calling capabilities (Vision Phones, I believe it’s called) for several years now, all on 3G. Apple most definitely didn’t invent it, or revolutionise it.
No one uses it, though, since no one wants to be looking up peoples’ noses or talking on speakerphone all the time.
But it’s available. And there are multiple phones that support it.
If Apple is able to take an existing “technology” that nobody uses and package it in a way that makes everyone want to use it, they might not have revolutionized it on a technology scale, but I think you could successfully argue that they have revolutionized it on a social scale.
I live in Los Angeles. There are a lot of expensive phones in this town. I’ve never seen a video call in the wild. I have a feeling I will see many once this is launched, even if its just in little cafe’s w/ wifi.
Hey, got this blog on gadgets where i am writing about about various aspects of iphone 4 – like expected problems, troubleshooting etc. i hope i have been able to contribute..Do give some feedback on this post: http://www.gadget-gizmos.com/2010/06/iphone-4-troubleshooting/
Thanks in advance.
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