Next-Gen iPhone & iPhone Nano Speculation

[Arun]

The Siri slides in the Apple presentation yesterday said "Wi-Fi and 3G", if I'm not mistaken. I've yet to watch the video, but it's probably said out loud there since it was up on the big screen.

Ugh. What's wrong with them?! Surely the accuracy wouldn't suffer much if you sent it at a lower bitrate over 2G. And they've got an Audience chip in there so there's little reason why they should send the audio streams of both microphones separately. Here's hoping it only means 'may not give a perfect experience on 2G, and may not work at all with weak 2G signals' rather than an artificial limitation to 3G/WiFi.

And sebbi, the Galaxy Note is a cool device, 5.3" is pretty damn big though I must admit

 

[Mariner]

I think I am going to settle on Galaxy Note. It has a 1280x800 5.3" AMOLED screen, and a 1.4GHz dual core CPU. Double display DPI compared to the 10.1" Android tablets is a great thing to have, and it fits my pocket (and can make/receive phone calls).

May be worth waiting to see what the Nexus Prime has to offer. It is scheduled to be announced next week (I believe) and reportedly has a curved 4.6" screen with 1280 x 720 resolution.

Pretty big screen but not as large as the Note which looks to be quite unwieldy to me!

 

[Rys]

4.6 is the wrong side of usable for my girly hands, sadly, no matter how much pixel density they're cramming in (it should be a fantastic screen!). Can't wait to see what it's finally like.

 

[wishiknew]

Good bye Steve.

 

[Sinistar]

Only 56 years old.
R.I.P.

 

[Xmas]

Surprisingly, 4.6", 16:9 is actually an almost ideal edge-to-edge fit for the iPhone 4 shape (i.e. leaving some space at the top and bottom where the rounded corners start). It's too big for one-handed operation, though.

Siri is looking really nice if a bit laggy. But really, it should be controllable through a watch, or an iPod Nano (with a dedicated button).

 

[stiftl]

Well Jobs isn't going to be around forever so they have to be able to launch new products without him sooner or later.

QFT

 

[Arun]

RIP Steve, if possible let's try to keep most condolences in this thread: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=61009

So out of my first post, what came to pass and what didn't? First what was right:
- MDM6600 (duh)
- A5 (but looks like it has lower peak clocks)
- Sony 8MP (duh, Sony isn't 100% sure but OVT doesn't have that good a sensor)
- 1GB 64-bit LPDDR2 (most positive surprise given they didn't talk about this IMO!)

And what didn't happen:
- A cheaper iPhone Nano(!)
- 3.7" Edge-to-Edge
- 720p Front Cam
- Broadcom NFC

Things that still aren't clear:
- Audience eS310 (likely, given how much they are focusing on Siri)
- 5GHz WiFi (very unlikely, but they had WiFi in the iPod Touch 2G and didn't enable it until much later after all)

So what would it take for people to be impressed by the iPhone 5 one year from now? LTE via 28nm MDM9615 is a given, but what about the screen? With the Nexus Prime having a 4.65" 1280x720 AMOLED screen, even a 3.7" 960x640 IPS screen is going to feel very subpar one year from now. But Apple can't really increase the screen size too much without increasing the resolution given how much they have (rightfully IMO) marketed their Retina Display, and they can't increase their resolution without partially breaking application compatibility. To make matters worse, there's nowhere near enough capacity for them to switch to AMOLED, and even if there was Samsung owns the vast majority of the capacity today and wants to reserve most of it for their own products.

There is one thing they could do that would blow me away though, and probably the rest of the universe with it - as Xmas said, 4.6" 16:9 is ironically a nearly perfect fit for an edge-to-edge (horizontally *and* vertically) iPhone without a home button. I think a 4.5" 16:9 display would be pretty awesome, but if you increase the display size that much without increasing device size, your screen will take significantly more power without you being able to fit a bigger battery. And obviously 1280x720 wouldn't be fully backward compatible with 960x640. Super AMOLED would make this a smaller problem because you could have black borders on the screen of a color very close to that of the device, but it's still not perfect and as I said there's no way Apple could secure enough capacity before late 2013.

There are no perfect solutions, but does anyone have a "good enough" one to propose? At this point I'm tempted to think 4" 960x480 Horizontal Edge-to-Edge is their best shot, 288 DPI be damned.

 

[sebbbi]

There are no perfect solutions, but does anyone have a "good enough" one to propose? At this point I'm tempted to think 4" 960x480 Horizontal Edge-to-Edge is their best shot, 288 DPI be damned.

I would have been perfectly happy with a 4" screen at the same 960x640 resolution. And the leaked prototype aluminum unibody would have sealed the deal for me. Those specs should have been comparable to superstars of this fall (Nexus Prime and Galaxy Note), but next summer, a iPhone 5 with just a 4" display at 960x640 would be already outdated.

 

[Xmas]

There is one thing they could do that would blow me away though, and probably the rest of the universe with it - as Xmas said, 4.6" 16:9 is ironically a nearly perfect fit for an edge-to-edge (horizontally *and* vertically) iPhone without a home button. I think a 4.5" 16:9 display would be pretty awesome, but if you increase the display size that much without increasing device size, your screen will take significantly more power without you being able to fit a bigger battery. And obviously 1280x720 wouldn't be fully backward compatible with 960x640.

I don't think backwards compatibility would be much of a problem. You could run older apps with black borders (and an on-screen home button) which wouldn't look much different from what you get today. Supporting a higher resolution (at the same pixel density) is a small change for many apps, though some may need extended layout tweaks.

 

[Arun]

I don't think backwards compatibility would be much of a problem. You could run older apps with black borders (and an on-screen home button) which wouldn't look much different from what you get today. Supporting a higher resolution (at the same pixel density) is a small change for many apps, though some may need extended layout tweaks.

Maybe I'm nitpicking (kinda necessary to figure out what Apple might realistically do) but I feel that solution would benefit from better contrast (i.e. blacker blacks). An AMOLED would be ideal but unrealistic, however I suppose there's still plenty of room to improve on the good old LCD front (ala Droid 2: http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4643/40430.png)

 

[Xmas]

Even an AMOLED screen reflects light differently than any bezel material. And in average/bright lighting conditions the reflected light will always dominate backlight leakage from a high-quality LCD.

But I don't think it's something to be worried about. Some users may even prefer a wallpaper/frame to black bars.

 

[wco81]

What is the killer app for these big screens with high resolution? The 720p screen suggests HD video.

Is video that prevalent on a phone, at the tradeoff of battery life? I sync'd some movies to the iPhone but never watched a full one. Some short video podcasts are okay but they're not HD nor are most Youtube videos.

I get the sense that designers don't really have good ideas on what to do with the increasing power of SOCs so they concentrate it mostly towards the display/graphics. And if they can't keep putting more powerful SOCs in phones, then new sales would be hampered.

 

[Arun]

Even an AMOLED screen reflects light differently than any bezel material. And in average/bright lighting conditions the reflected light will always dominate backlight leakage from a high-quality LCD.

Ah yes, I forgot the reflection light is much greater than leakage light, I suppose that won't really help then. I agree black bars and/or a wallpaper isn't the end of the world, although Apple seems to value full backwards compatibility by quadrupling the number of pixels in the iPhone 4 and, if the rumours are true, the iPad 3. I wouldn't be surprised if they at least stuck to the same aspect ratio for that reason. I think 1200x800 (like the Galaxy Note) and Horizontal Edge-to-Edge (like the rumored 2011 iPhone 5) on a ~4.2" screen would be an interesting solution.

The skeptic in me thinks 3.7" Horizontal Edge-to-Edge with the same 960x640 resolution is more likely for the iPhone 5 though, but we'll see.

 

[Arun]

What is the killer app for these big screens with high resolution? The 720p screen suggests HD video.

IMO, the killer apps are browsing, video, and even e-books. The basic idea is that I'd much rather have one 4.65" 1280x720 phone than one 3.5" phone and a 10" tablet. Yes, the 3.5" phone is more "portable" and the 10" tablet is "magical", but I think there's room for something much more practical between the two. YMMV.

Is video that prevalent on a phone, at the tradeoff of battery life?

Video decoding is very cheap nowadays so most of the power comes from the backlight. The CPU for web browsing takes a lot more power - it's no coincidence Apple quotes 10 hours for video on the 4S but only 9 hours for WiFi web browsing, and the latter is with plenty of low CPU utilization periods while you remain on the same page. And on 45nm and beyond with LPDDR2 memory, even 1080p decode is very cheap.

I sync'd some movies to the iPhone but never watched a full one. Some short video podcasts are okay but they're not HD nor are most Youtube videos.

Wait, what? This is all mostly 1080p with some 720p: http://www.youtube.com/charts/videos_views?t=m (and a lot of even very amateur videos are 720p now)

I get the sense that designers don't really have good ideas on what to do with the increasing power of SOCs so they concentrate it mostly towards the display/graphics. And if they can't keep putting more powerful SOCs in phones, then new sales would be hampered.

I honestly don't think we've hit that point yet. There's still plenty of improvements in CPU performance and better/higher resolution video/imaging/etc. are definitely very useful for many people. 3D performance is a bit of an odd case though; some people love playing not-so-casual games on these devices, others just don't care. Because of that I expect you'll eventually see a phenomenon where SoCs either have a *lot* of GPU performance or very little - there won't be much of a "mid-range sweetspot" like there is in the PC market. Or maybe not - we'll see what the market looks like in a few years.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

What is the killer app for these big screens with high resolution?

"Desktop-like" web browsing.
I would gladly pay lots for a smartphone with a large 4->4.3" screen and 720p resolution that'd allow me to navigate the web like I do in tablets, notebooks or desktops, instead of having to depend on tens of ridiculous apps that exist for the sole purpose of compensating for the lack of visual information that can be shown in a typical 3.7" WVGA smartphone.



In a lesser scale youtube HD videos and games with on-screen controls. Most games (except Angry Birds, accelerometer-based racing games and some others) are borderline impractical to play in my N8's 3.5" screen or my Defy's 3.7" screen.

 

[Lazy8s]

As well adapted as I am to phones with larger, 4.5" and up displays and as easily as my hands accommodate them, I still appreciate the extra one-handed usability and portability of the current iPhone displays, and I wouldn't trade the quality of the display for any phone out there (after comparing them all in person). Of course, I would still prefer a larger screen size, and it's the wasted space on the phone that drives me crazy the most.

In the quest for pixel density, Apple could leverage the 150K+ apps built for iPad and increase the phone's resolution to that level. That would be a poor choice versus making a clean break for a much higher resolution corresponding to a larger screen size, though.

Overall, the 4S will still be the performance king, the display size still has its usefulness, and it'll be running in the range of current "4G" speeds, so it's still a top option for now.

 

[Pressure]

I would have been perfectly happy with a 4" screen at the same 960x640 resolution. And the leaked prototype aluminum unibody would have sealed the deal for me. Those specs should have been comparable to superstars of this fall (Nexus Prime and Galaxy Note), but next summer, a iPhone 5 with just a 4" display at 960x640 would be already outdated.

The only reason the iPhone would get a larger screen is if it doesn't change the physical size of the phone.
This is first and foremost a phone.

From a design perspective there really wouldn't be anything gained going from 3.5" to 4" if the resolution stays the same.
It's all about the user experience offered by the software and in that sense the iPhone is still offering the better overall experience.

It's hard to argue against the fact that the Apple A5 is still the fastest overall SoC available.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

The only reason the iPhone would get a larger screen is if it doesn't change the physical size of the phone.
This is first and foremost a phone.

From a design perspective there really wouldn't be anything gained going from 3.5" to 4" if the resolution stays the same.
It's all about the user experience offered by the software and in that sense the iPhone is still offering the better overall experience.

It's hard to argue against the fact that the Apple A5 is still the fastest overall SoC available.

Your arguments lose validity once you talk about user experience.
A larger screen enhances the user experience greatly. Specially if you go from 3.5 to ~4".

With at least a 3.7" 16:10 screen, they could even keep the same dimensions and just cut on those huge top and bottom bezels.

 

[hoho]

The difference in browsing convenience between 3.5" N900 vs 4" N950 is immense. I never thought just that little could make so huge difference. The resolution for both is nearly the same as well.

Though I'd kill for a 4.5-5" screen, HW qwerty kb and 3000+ mAh battery phone. I don't care if it weighs >200g and is 2cm thick. I've got big hands and pockets