iPhone Gets Better Battery, Scratch Resistant Glass

Dekortage writes "Prior to its much-hyped launch on June 29, Apple has announced upgrades to its battery life (almost 40% more than originally announced) and scratch resistance (using "optical quality glass" rather than plastics). The announcement also includes a comparison chart pitting the iPhone against smartphones from Nokia, Samsung, Palm, and Blackberry."

Worst comparison chart EVER

[by Anonymous Coward]

Apart from not selecting like for like that's arguably the most horribly biased selection of measurements I've ever seen used in a comparison chart. I know the aim of the chart is to try and make the iPhone look good but when doing these type of charts most companies at least give their competitors some credit so as not to look too desperate. Probably the most obvious is the first - thickness comparison without weight, width and height comparison? It's a shame it doesn't list things like features either because that's where the iPhone really fails miserably, it simply has no killer app like the Nokia N95's built in GPS.

Posted anonymously to avoid the Apple fanboy army that plagues Slashdot and that can't accept that Apple aren't always capable of producing a decent product.

Re:Worst comparison chart EVER

[eln (21727)]

the comparison charts deal strictly with physical attributes, not things like GPS.

Really? I had no idea that "Internet Use", "Video Playback", and "Audio Playback" were physical attributes.

Re:Worst comparison chart EVER

[Fulkkari (603331)]

the comparison charts deal strictly with physical attributes, not things like GPS.

Really? I had no idea that "Internet Use", "Video Playback", and "Audio Playback" were physical attributes.

Time! Internet Use [Time]. Video Playback [Time]. Audio Playback [Time]. Timetimetime! How long the battery can keep up with the load. That certainly is a physical attribute.

Re:Worst comparison chart EVER

[killmenow (184444)]

... on a huge 3.7" screen...

Only on slashdot will you ever hear 3.7" referred to as "huge".

Re:Worst comparison chart EVER

[iMac Were (911261)]

Depends if that's the width, honey.

Re:Worst comparison chart EVER

[pla (258480)]

Finally, slimness is what consumers care about.

So you'd feel just fine with a 0.25in thick phone 1ft high by 6in wide and weighing 15lbs?

I care about exactly one aspect of my phone's geometry - Does it fit in the little half-pockets on the mid-leg side of all my jeans.

For the record, the iPhone comes in at 0.46x2.4x4.5in. That would probably not fit in said pockets (which have a flattened width of just under 2.5in on the pants I have on today), or at best would fit too tightly for comfort. My current phone fits nicely, however, at 0.9x2.0x4.3in, despite literally twice the given-yet-irrelevant thickness.



the comparison charts deal strictly with physical attributes, not things like GPS.

The "Wi-Fi", "Talk Time", "Internet Use", "Video Playback", and "Audio Playback" rows on that chart would tend to disagree.

I'm reminded of those "comparison" ads

[Solandri (704621)]

Thankfully they seem to have gone out of vogue, but they were ubiquitous back in the 70's and 80's. Basically a product's marketer would take the spec sheets for their product and their competitors' products. Then they'd go through and cherry-pick all the features where their product was the best. Then they'd make an ad based on it. It was incredibly annoying because you'd see ads for a half dozen competing products all (semi-truthfully) claiming to be the BEST in bold letters with the details hidden in the fine print. "This cereal is the BEST! (has 100% recommended dietary allowance of niacin)." "No, this cereal is the BEST! (has 100% recommended dietary allowance of vitamin C)." etc. This was in direct contradiction to the common accepted definition of "best" which implies that only one product can qualify.

The fanboys would also pick up on it too, trying to think of excuses why their list wasn't a list of features that made their chosen product look good compared to the competition, but rather was a list features that mattered. I see nothing has changed in that regard.

Re:Worst comparison chart EVER

[empaler (130732)]

It's probably worth noting the iPhone's camera is pretty dire in comparison to the new Sony/Nokia offerings too - 2megapixel vs. 5 megapixel.

Give me a 2 MP cam with good photosensitive silicon rather than a 5 MP with cheap third-rate silicon.
I'm not saying that Apple has shelled out for a better cam function, I'm just saying that MP count is like snakeoil.

Re:Worst comparison chart EVER

[trisweb (690296)]

Nah, he's right, the characteristics of the imaging sensors are mostly what hold the camera phones back. They're tiny, pack a ton of pixels in a very small area, and therefore have a very low SNR, so they capture lots of noise and not much light (hence, they're not the best at being "cameras"). This is probably because the sensors themselves are so small, and the photosites on the CCDs are proportionally smaller. In that case, packing 2 million pixels into an equal space as 5 million will give you more than twice as many photons per photosite and should increase the SNR accordingly, giving higher quality images regardless of the optics.

Lens quality being equal, the 2 MP sensor will probably be better (unless of course you really need the extra resolution, which is highly unlikely when using a telephone as a camera...).

Re:Worst comparison chart EVER

[Bloke down the pub (861787)]

One isn't a valid sample. He should get a load of them and compare them. Maybe on a chart or something.

Nice

[timeOday (582209)]

Those are upgrades every user will appreciate. Battery life is obviously good, and remember all the furor over iPod Nano scratches?

Look at the phones. Battery life was a secret.

[Gary W. Longsine (124661)]

Looking at these phones it becomes clear that battery life was a secret feature of the iPhone, probably known to Apple all along. It's clearly one of the intended design features of the phone. By eliminating the keyboards (and sliders), and stylus storage slots, Apple wound up with a phone that not only has almost twice as much space available for the display screen, but also has nearly twice as much room for battery. Sure, they probably put a lot of effort into power management features of OS X, and other optimizations in the hardware design, but the biggest win is undoubtedly the physical design.

Re:Look at the phones. Battery life was a secret.

[dfghjk (711126)]

I think you have that exactly backwards. The iPhone is limited by it's thickness and weight. Any manufacturer can add a bigger battery if they're willing to sacrifice in those areas. With the iPhone, removing a keyboard that consumes no power and replacing it with a double-sized screen leads to more power consumption, not less. Apple has had to contend with a device that uses more power for its size than its competitors. It is also using an OS not specifically written for low power devices. That doesn't mean that the device will be a failure but it sure indicates the unlikeliness of your claim. It's far from clear that battery life is the secret feature; everything suggests the opposite.

I'll also note that, in true /. fashion, the author claims in the title that the iPhone gets a better battery. Not true, of course, as the iPhone gets better battery *life* *ratings*. I'm curious what the new weight *rating* is especially with glass replacing plastic for the screen.

Does Anyone Do Hype Better?

[dprovine (140134)]

I used to think the NFL was the world's greatest hype machine, with the annual orgy of coverage about the Super Bowl, a game that's usually not as interesting as the commercials.

But Apple has probably gotten something like a billion dollars of free publicity for six months about the iPhone, which almost nobody has actually held in their hands yet. I'm convinced that the business last week with Safari was planned way in advance, as was this bit with the batteries and the screen, so that in the last few weeks before the iPhone came out Apple would be getting more gobs of free press.

Is there anybody who works the press as well as Steve Jobs?

Re:Does Anyone Do Hype Better?

[tritone (189506)]

"Is there anybody who works the press as well as Steve Jobs?"

Uhh. Paris Hilton?

Re:Does Anyone Do Hype Better?

[Shakrai (717556)]

Uhh. Paris Hilton?

Paris! You must find your way out of this place or you will surely die. Make your way to the Sparrow Prince! He will guide you the rest of the way. Now go! Make haste!

Uh huh

[lewp (95638)]

The battery probably didn't even change. The only difference is that the old numbers came from engineering, and the new numbers came from PR :P

(I kid, I kid. I think it's a pretty sweet little device, personally.)

Will it Survive a Fall?

[Greyfox (87712)]

Cell phones get dropped fairly regularly. I'm sure the same goes for ipods. Will the iphone be able to withstand a fall from 3 or 4 feet onto carpeting or concrete?

Re:Will it Survive a Fall?

[CastrTroy (595695)]

I know a guy who worked at RIM, and they said they actually did testing like this with their blackberries. I'm not sure about the current models, but 3 or 4 years ago, they were made to stand up to quite a substantial drop. This kind of stuff is really important. I almost wish there was independant crash tests done on consumer products the same way they are done on cars.

Re:Dvorak strikes again

[killmenow (184444)]

...Dvorak (the original, not the popular term for a retard)...

Please stop insulting retards.

Re:How about.... Price?

[BlakeReid (1033116)]

I'll pay $250 tops.

Wrong. You'll pay $499, line up 12 hours in advance, sign an 8 year contract with Satan and give your first born over to me - and you'll like it! Love, Steve Jobs

Re:How about.... Price?

[east coast (590680)]

I am also no "fanboy" as everyone seems to like to call people who likes Apple. I just love better products and are willing to pay extra for them.

Also, last time I checked, it was only $600, but if it is now $800, fine... For Apple products, it definitely worth it.

Just as a note: take it from me, you're a fanboi if this is the way you really think.

You're already proclaiming that spending as much as 2-3 times what most smart phones cost is Ok with you because it's an Apple, without even getting the phone into your hands? Actually, even more than Ok but "definitely worth it."

If that's not fanboism what is?

I'm not saying the phone is not worth it. If all the promises are true and if the phone is as reliable as my iPod has been I can understand why people found it desirable. But the fact is that you're pretty much saying it's a done deal. No one on slashdot, or at least very very few, have even had one of these in their hands let alone made a call on one or beat it around for a few months or a year to give us the kind of serious insight into this device that dictates spending big money on it.

To sit there and publicly proclaim a product get's a "thumbs up" simply because of the name etched into it's shell is fanboism. 100%. Every company makes a bad product and Apple has had enough to show us they're no different than anyone else. To deny that is also fanboism.

Re:Battery Life

[pnaro (78663)]

You forgot to read the small print ... * Battery life affected be screen intensity. Video playback assumes LCD display off.

Re:I don't see what all the fuss is about.

[Phroggy (441)]

People are all excited about this thing, and I don't understand why. Is it the iPrefix somehow making people think this will be as big a deal as the iPod?

No. I don't care about the iPod. I've never owned one, and don't plan to buy one. If I get an iPhone, I don't expect to use its iPod capabilities very much (although, who knows, I guess that could change when I have it).

The difference here is that the iPod came in at the beginning of a new market, while the iPhone is trying to crack an existing and highly-competitive one.

Yes, that is one difference. That probably explains why the iPod has something like 85% market share while Apple's stated goal is for the iPhone to capture 1%.

And I'm just not seeing anything special.

Then you're really not looking. Forget about the technical specifications for a moment; nobody cares about that. Look at how the user interface works. Go to www.apple.com/iphone [apple.com] and view the Flash walkthroughs. All of them. See how easy it is to e-mail a photo to somebody, how to browse your voicemail messages, how to use Google Maps while a call is on speakerphone. My current phone has all of these features (except for using Google Maps during a call), but the interface is painful and it takes forever to do anything. I would never think of e-mailing someone a photo I've just taken with the built-in camera, because it takes too much time and effort on my phone. I use it to check my e-mail sometimes, but it takes forever, I can only access one e-mail account at a time, and even though I'm using IMAP, it will only show me new messages; I get no access to existing messages or other folders. Apple hasn't stated that the iPhone will definitely support multiple servers and IMAP folders, but I expect that it will, and it will be as easy to set up and use as it is on my iBook.

Let's see.

It's expensive. It only works on one provider. And it's closed platform.

It is expensive, but I support Apple's efforts to wrest control of the American mobile phone market out of the hands of cell phone carriers. It's an uphill battle, and Cingular was the only company willing to allow Apple to do this; everyone else refused. That's the reason it only works on one provider. Hopefully, if the iPhone proves successful and customers on other networks start demanding it, the other carriers will back down.

I am concerned about the iPhone being a closed platform. AJAX widgets are great, and completely appropriate for a lot of the things I would want a phone to do, but they can't be the only solution. I want an SSH client, for example, and that just can't be done in AJAX. A VNC client that I could tunnel through SSH would be a nice bonus. Hopefully in the future, Apple will begin to support third-party development of real native applications for the iPhone. In the mean time, the iPhone can do just about everything my current phone can do, plus a whole bunch.

If it used a SIM card, and had an open API, I'd be a lot more impressed.

As someone else already said, it does use a SIM card.

As it stands, I'll wait for the Openmoko [openmoko.com].

Openmoko does sound promising, but maybe by the time that's ready, Apple will have addressed your other concerns in the next version of the iPhone. Don't buy one yet, but understand that your needs are not the same as the needs of a lot of other people, and the iPhone does everything most people want just fine. This is the first release, and the next one will be even better. Don't write it off.

Underpromise and overdeliver

[ajlitt (19055)]

Congratulations, you've caught on to Apple's marketing secret. Now sit back and wait for the men in black turtlenecks to cart you off for re-education.