Obligatory iPhone 4 Thread...

[Ike Turner]

I see some sits saying it can play 720p. How can you play a 1280x720 video on a 960x640 display ?, are they playing it at 640x720 ?

Eh? Are you serious?
How can I play 1080P video on my 1050 monitor? It's automaticaly scaled down by the GPU to fit my screen. Same as the Zune HD playing 720P video on a 480x272 screen etc..You will get black bars on the iPhone because of the aspect ratio tho..

Or maybe I didn't understand your question...

 

[London Geezer]

Eh? Are you serious?
How can I play 1080P video on my 1050 monitor? It's automaticaly scaled down by the GPU to fit my screen. Same as the Zune HD playing 720P video on a 480x272 screen etc..You will get black bars on the iPhone because of the aspect ratio tho..

Or maybe I didn't understand your question...

I think his point (which i agree with) is that once you downscale it, it's not 720p anymore, is it?
But i understand: the iPhone 4 captures 720p. i can watch it at full res on my Mac/PC but when watching the same video on the iPhone, it will be slightly downscaled.

 

[Rys]

There's TV out on the iPhone.

 

[Scott_Arm]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/b...ampaign=Feed:+BadAstronomyBlog+(Bad+Astronomy)

Hubble guy talks iPhone resolution.

 

[tangey]

Eh? Are you serious?
How can I play 1080P video on my 1050 monitor? It's automaticaly scaled down by the GPU to fit my screen. Same as the Zune HD playing 720P video on a 480x272 screen etc..You will get black bars on the iPhone because of the aspect ratio tho..

Or maybe I didn't understand your question...

You didn't understand it, your zune is not HD device, anymore than an iphone 3GS taking HD content and scaling it to 480x320 would be a HD device. It appears that reviews are confusing the ability to take HD content and scale it down to a non-HD screen (which is something that 3GS can't do), with actually having a HD playback device.

 

[London Geezer]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/b...ampaign=Feed:+BadAstronomyBlog+(Bad+Astronomy)

Hubble guy talks iPhone resolution.

With this article and so many others, i have never in my life seen suck mostly useless pickiness in my entire life. Seriously, it's a screen. With many pixels. It looks good. Enough already about arcminutes and optic nerves and subatomic particles!
Of course Apple will talk about it as if our eyes will melt upon looking at it, it's their job. Good Lord!

 

[Ike Turner]

You didn't understand it, your zune is not HD device, anymore than an iphone 3GS taking HD content and scaling it to 480x320 would be a HD device. It appears that reviews are confusing the ability to take HD content and scale it down to a non-HD screen (which is something that 3GS can't do), with actually having a HD playback device.

I still can't figure out what you are trying to say here. The iPhone 4 (just like the Zune HD) will be able to decode a 720P video and play it back (automaticaly scaled down to 964x680) on the device's screen or in 720P on a TV (if it ever has a tv-out with HDMI adapter like the Zune HD), just like I'm able to playback a 1080p video on my 1050 screen, does this mean that my PC isn't an "HD playback device" because it isn't hooked up to a 1080p monitor/TV? . Nothing is stoping Apple to allow the video to be played at default zoom level on the handset's screen (this can be done on WinMo devices with CorePlayer, just set the view to 100% instead of fill screen or fit to screen)but more than half of the content will be missing ("outside"). Hope I was clear enough

 

[Mariner]

I think it is safe to say that the display's specifications probably do exceed the human eye's ability to see the individual pixels - but only if you're within the bounds of the famous Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field.

 

[nutball]

Cynicism aside I think that higher DPI screens are very useful on such small devices. Last phone I had that had anything close was the Nokia N80, it made a big difference to the readability of web pages at small font size. Hopefully one day all smartphones will be like this (and, while I'm on the subject, hopefully one day the trend will spread to the desktop).

 

[Mariner]

It will be interesting to see a comparison between this new IPS screen and the Samsung Super AMOLED screens.

In theory, at least, the Samsung screen will take a lot of beating.

 

[Ike Turner]

In theory, at least, the Samsung screen will take a lot of beating.

Why do you think that?

 

[Mike11]

They typically don't put cameras on the iPod Touch either. Or digital compass, GPS.

You figure A4 SOC and the display will be on the iPod Touch they will release in September or so.

Anything else is a bonus.

He did say during the FaceTime demo I think, that there would be tens of millions of devices capable of FT by the end of the year. So they will either sell a lot of iPhone 4s this year or maybe they will put it on iPod Touch for the first time.

"tens of millions of devices capable of FT by the end of the year" sounds like a long shot. But I can think of a few scenarios:

1) FT will remain iPhone 4 only and Apple will sell at least 20 million iPhone 4 in calendar year 2010... That sounds unlikely to me since the iPhone 4 won't be available worldwide until September and Apple sells around 2/3 of all iPhones outside the US. Plus part of these iPhones are the 3GS, which don't count towards FT enabled devices.

2) Apple will update iChat to be FaceTime compatible... Well, that would work for the "tens of millions" part, but I'm not sure for the "devices" part.

3) iPod touch with FaceTime... Apple will surely keep last years model around for the low-end like with the iPhone 3GS, but iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4th gen combined should have no trouble to reach 20 million. But I'm not sure that Apple is willing to upgrade the iPod touch to a be capable WiFi communication device (without the need for accessories) that can voice/video communicate with all iPhone 4s without any extra software or costs (and I bet AT&T would hate this idea too).

4) Other devices with FaceTime... Apple TV could get a camera of some sorts (add-on or integrated, the Apple TV could be small enough (since it's an iPod touch without battery and display) to put it on top of a TV, like a computer webcam). Or Apple already has partnerships with other manufacturers who will implement FaceTime in their devices this year.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I think it is safe to say that the display's specifications probably do exceed the human eye's ability to see the individual pixels - but only if you're within the bounds of the famous Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field.

I don't know. The article I posted is pretty interesting and seems to suggest most people wouldn't be able to discern individual pixels at about a foot or more, which is about as close as you'd ever hold the phone to your face.

The whole "Retinal Display" tag is kind of stupid though. They're making it sound like it's some new type of super-display, but it's just an IPS panel with small pixels. The display should look very nice though.

 

[rpg.314]

"tens of millions of devices capable of FT by the end of the year" sounds like a long shot. But I can think of a few scenarios:

1) FT will remain iPhone 4 only and Apple will sell at least 20 million iPhone 4 in calendar year 2010... That sounds unlikely to me since the iPhone 4 won't be available worldwide until September and Apple sells around 2/3 of all iPhones outside the US. Plus part of these iPhones are the 3GS, which don't count towards FT enabled devices.

2) Apple will update iChat to be FaceTime compatible... Well, that would work for the "tens of millions" part, but I'm not sure for the "devices" part.

3) iPod touch with FaceTime... Apple will surely keep last years model around for the low-end like with the iPhone 3GS, but iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4th gen combined should have no trouble to reach 20 million. But I'm not sure that Apple is willing to upgrade the iPod touch to a be capable WiFi communication device (without the need for accessories) that can voice/video communicate with all iPhone 4s without any extra software or costs (and I bet AT&T would hate this idea too).

4) Other devices with FaceTime... Apple TV could get a camera of some sorts (add-on or integrated, the Apple TV could be small enough (since it's an iPod touch without battery and display) to put it on top of a TV, like a computer webcam). Or Apple already has partnerships with other manufacturers who will implement FaceTime in their devices this year.

May be they'll push out FT onto macs also.

iPod Touch does not have front facing camera.

 

[wco81]

Maybe I misheard the claim about tens of millions of FT-capable devices too.

AT&T is going to be real aggressive on upgrades, letting a lot of people upgrade early at the lower prices. Maybe because they expect iPhone going to Verizon in the near future as rumored.

Not absolutely sure that FT is a killer app. People will check it out but use it regularly?

 

[Xmas]

Hm. "Often" would vary from title to title, would it not?

Of course. But few titles will stack tens of thousands of rectangles onto each other. If you have many sprites, you probably also have some more interesting shapes and thus some amount of transparency.

You didn't understand it, your zune is not HD device, anymore than an iphone 3GS taking HD content and scaling it to 480x320 would be a HD device. It appears that reviews are confusing the ability to take HD content and scale it down to a non-HD screen (which is something that 3GS can't do), with actually having a HD playback device.

Are you saying the 3GS can't downscale HD content?
I don't think reviews are confusing these abilities, the distinction should be obvious from mentioning the display resolution.

Why do you think that?

PenTile perhaps. I certainly hope Samsung SDI is considering dropping PenTile for displays which are intended for more than showing photos and videos.

iPod Touch does not have front facing camera.

The current iPod Touch doesn't have a camera at all. But a product refresh is probably not too far off.

 

[Mariner]

Why do you think that?

Much higher contrast for the AMOLED screens, better viewing angles, lower power consumption.

A friend has a HTC Desire which uses a Non-Super AMOLED screen and from a quick look at that, it appeared much brighter and clearer than any other touch screen phone I've seen before.

The marketing battles have already begun!

http://blog.gsmarena.com/samsung-ta...-structurally-unable-to-catch-up-with-amoled/

I'm certainly not complaining about the IPS screen in the new iPhone as it should be a big improvement over older TFT screens. The whole 'Retina' marketing claptrap is what irritates me most. Apple have got an excellent product in the iPhone, both old and new, but spout massive amounts of bullshit about all their stuff. Always have done, always will.

What particularly gets my goat is the TV adverts for the App Store - I wonder how many people read the tiny "Sequence shortened" lettering on the bottom of the screen as they show the iPhone doing something incredibly complex with about 2 touches! :smile:

 

[Ike Turner]

PenTile perhaps. I certainly hope Samsung SDI is considering dropping PenTile for displays which are intended for more than showing photos and videos.

So far the only devices on the market with a PenTile Matrix AMOLED panel are the HTC Desire/Nexus One ( the HTC Legend has a normal RGB AMOLED panel). No? AFAIK Samsung's own handsets don't use it and the SuperAMOLED stuff I've seen doesn't seem to have a PineTile Matrix either. I could be wrong though...
Edit: did some research and it seems like the SuperAMOLED Panel does have the shitty PenTile Matrix...

 

[Ike Turner]

Much higher contrast for the AMOLED screens, better viewing angles, lower power consumption.

A friend has a HTC Desire which uses a Non-Super AMOLED screen and from a quick look at that, it appeared much brighter and clearer than any other touch screen phone I've seen before.

The marketing battles have already begun!

http://blog.gsmarena.com/samsung-ta...-structurally-unable-to-catch-up-with-amoled/

I'm certainly not complaining about the IPS screen in the new iPhone as it should be a big improvement over older TFT screens. The whole 'Retina' marketing claptrap is what irritates me most. Apple have got an excellent product in the iPhone, both old and new, but spout massive amounts of bullshit about all their stuff. Always have done, always will.

What particularly gets my goat is the TV adverts for the App Store - I wonder how many people read the tiny "Sequence shortened" lettering on the bottom of the screen as they show the iPhone doing something incredibly complex with about 2 touches! :smile:

Oh I thought you were saying the opposite (that the IPS panel was better than the Super AMOLED). BTW, as stated above the AMOLED Panel on the HTC Desire sin't even the best around (thanks to the crazy PenTile Matrix) and HTC's shitty color calibration)

 

[Mariner]

Will take a lot of beating, not will take a beating. Damn me and my English idiom. Two nations, separated by the same language...

I've heard of the problems with PenTile displays but only had a quick look at my friend's HTC Desire so didn't really look for fuzzy text/dodgy gradients. I realise the screen isn't as good as the new Super AMOLED and has issues, but I was pretty impressed at a quick glance.