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

[pantherace (165052)]

You've not looked at many of Apple's comparison charts have you?

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.

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

[trisweb (690296)]

Wow, I thought slimness was a bit obvious. When you get your head too far in statistics I can see how you might lose the obvious... but man.

With my current phone I wish I had an electronics pancake maker press thingie so I could press it as thin as possible, I don't even care how wide or tall it gets as long as it's as thin as possible.... it's all about seamlessly fitting in the pocket and not sticking out and making you look stupid.

And besides, it's not like Apple actually STUDIED phone users or anything, like they would EVER ask people what they want, or look at statistics... I'm sure they did. If I were a designer, I'd have looked for a good balance between width and height and thickness, and I'm sure they did too. The phone looks both slim and not too wide, I think that could be a good combination.

Anyway, just because there are a lack of statistics about it doesn't mean they didn't design it well, or collect their own stats. I highly doubt it was just for the advertising emphasis.

Re:Worst comparison chart EVER

[Wabin (600045)]

Supports third party development? Are you kidding? Sure, you can make web apps, but palm, symbian and even windows mobile kinda blow it out of the water on that front.

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

[Xest (935314)]

You sound roughly about as biased as the comparison chart. To be fair the OP has a point.

If it's about physical attributes why does it list non-physical attributes? and only one of the few physical attributes?

Slimness is all consumers care about? If that was the case everyone would be happy with the iPaq phones because they're so slim, of course in reality, the issue is they're too wide for most people to want in their pockets. Personally I also prefer phones to be light, so for me weight is one of the largest issues.

As for features well, yes it does have a few but not as many as the new Nokia and Sony offerings. Supports 3rd party development? this is a joke right? again, other offerings have full Java and some even C++ application support - that's an awful lot more than rich internet apps which nice, are still extremely limited - again, you aint EVER going to see anything like this on iPhones with their supposed 3rd party application support:

http://www.midlet-review.com/index?content=news&id =1023 [midlet-review.com]

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.

Re:Worst comparison chart EVER

[Firethorn (177587)]

Slimness is all consumers care about?

Another oddball consumer here-

What I care about is reception range/quality and battery life. I actually prefer a larger phone, as long as it'll fit in a pocket. Note: I shove paperback books in that pocket all the time. The reception range is on the list because I live a long ways from the nearest cell tower. The battery become second because as a result my phone ends up having to use full power much of the time.

Followups would be durability, then various features like bluetooth, GPS and MP3 playing. I know how to use a map, and do so, so I normally know where I am, and already have a dedicated mp3 player.

A nice big brick phone with a sensitive receiver, powerfull transmitter, huge battery with bluetooth would almost be my ideal phone. That way I can use my nice headset and stick the monster on my belt or passanger seat of my car.

Re:Worst comparison chart EVER

[Shakrai (717556)]

What I care about is reception range/quality and battery life

An oft unappreciated phone (and the one I use on a day to day basis) is the Motorola V195 [phonescoop.com]. It's offered by T-Mobile and Cellular One, but it's GSM, so you can get it unlocked and use it with anyone.

It has the highest RF output of any non-brick phone I've ever seen (1.7 watts on GSM850/900 and 1.0 on GSM1800/1900), the best reception, an insanely long battery life (rated for 10.5 hours of talk time -- I tend to get six or seven, depending on signal strength), class 1 (long range) bluetooth, plus it's a quad-band phone and will work in any country with a GSM network.

Yeah, it has no camera (who cares?) and is slim on features. But if all you want is a phone, I'm hard pressed to think of a better GSM one. And the full retail price is only $120.00 ($20 with contract) from T-Mobile. I'll cry a lot less when my $120 phone goes into the swimming pool/toilet/stolen then I will when something happens to my $600 iPhone. And that's with contract -- wonder what they'll charge you to get one at "full price" once you are already under contract?

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

[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.

Re:Worst pants ever

[pla (258480)]

cargo pants, carpenter pants, and any other pants with random pockets are fucking retarded.

So write me a ticket, Fashion Cop.



buy regular pants.

Then I wouldn't have extra pockets... Duh!

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.

Oh good grief

[Gary W. Longsine (124661)]

The chart is very clearly focused on a small set of features related to key differentiators of the iPhone. It's designed to attract people, to make them want to learn more about the iPhone. People who are curious will explore the feature set of the relative devices beyond this little chart. A giant chart with every feature of all devices would not attract nor interest anyone.

Your use of the term "fanboy" is unnecessary, as no actual fanboy performing actual fanboy stunts is cited. Attempting to use the propaganda technique of creating a boogeyman, "the evil fanboy" who pollutes your, uh, your advertising world by making excuses for, uh, advertisements, undermines any rational argument you may attempt to make.

Re:Worst comparison chart EVER

[shmlco (594907)]

"It's failing because despite all the hype, the iPhone offers practically nothing that competing devices hasn't had for years..."

I could rephrase that to "It's failing because despite all the hype, the iPod offers practically nothing that competing devices haven't [sic] had for years." And look where that got them.

"...except the "Apple feel"..."

Which is the point you've missed entirely. Yes, many phones may have done some or all of those things before. Doesn't matter. The iPhone, like the iPod and the Mac, is about integration, and about doing those things consistently, seamlessly, and WELL. It's about elegance, and as such about NOT cramming in the kitchen sink, just because you can. Some people get that. Others don't.

You'd also do well to remember that it's merely the first iPhone. Future versions may have some or all of those features you deem to be necessary for success.. Then again, future versions may have FEWER features (e.g. nano).

Re:Worst comparison chart EVER

[djdavetrouble (442175)]

GPS is a Gimmick ?!?

HOORAY, I LOVE GIMMICKS !

seriously, isn't that what this is all about anyway? most gimmicks wins ?

Re:Worst comparison chart EVER

[Scyber (539694)]

You missed the one I have ever heard of.

Nice

[timeOday (582209)]

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

Re:Nice

[empaler (130732)]

In a year you'll be writing "(..) and remember all the furor over the iPhone glass cracks?"

But....

[svendsen (1029716)]

How is the actual voice quality since well it's a phone and all?

Dvorak strikes again

[Space cowboy (13680)]

A little while back, Dvorak (the original, not the popular term for a retard) was claiming the iPhone would have 40 minutes talk-time [youtube.com] [the link doesn't go to Dvorak's site].

So, where's the retraction, John - after all, any *responsible* journalist's priority is the truth, not just seeking attention for himself at the expense of others...

Simon

Re:Dvorak strikes again

[killmenow (184444)]

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

Please stop insulting retards.

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?

[soft_guy (534437)]

I assume you are specifically referring to the fact that it has glass?

The Newton had a glass screen and I recall seeing a lot of them fall and none ever broke the screen from the fall. One time someone dropped a newton onto the screen of another newton and the screen did break, but the one she dropped was OK.

So, who knows? It is possible that it might survive a fall but it is hard to say until it actually ships.

See you in line on the 29th!

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.

It's a kind of magic..

[delire (809063)]

..and the new Intel Macs were supposed to be four-to-seven times faster [gizmodo.com] than a 1.7GHz PPC and have 4 hours battery life.

I think I might just wait for the first few 100k sales before I look at the next 'comparison chart' from Apple Corp..

100 microns thinner WOW!

[peter303 (12292)]

Reminds of an ancient TV cigarette commercial where their cigarettes were 2.55 inches long compared to industry standard 2.54 inches - "just a silly little millimeter longer": Benson & Hedges 101s.

Re:How about.... Price?

[RingDev (879105)]

I'll pay $250 tops. This is the first smart phone that I've seen that I would actually consider using. I just set up my VP's black berry last week and after 5 minutes my thumbs were already sore. But I just can't justify spending more than $250 on a phone. I'd like the extra features, but I can live without them.

-Rick

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:What is?

[east coast (590680)]

Prediction based on past performance?

I would agree with you if this was a new generation of an existing product instead of a new product with no past history. Again, manufacturers produce shoddy products from time to time. This is true of every manufacturer.

Is it so unthinkable to say, I have liked products from this company before, I'll trust them with a new purchase now?

Ah ha! But that's not what the OP was saying. The OP was saying that it was definitely worth the money without ever even seeing the product (nor having any real market data since none exists!) based on the fact that the Apple brand name was attached to it. To say "It should be a good product given..." is a far cry from "This product is definitely paying over current market value for..."

Re:Glass why?

[Penguinisto (415985)]

anti scratch coatings are pretty darn impressive.

Probably for QC/QA reasons. I have a spare pair of glasses at home w/ Polycarbonate lenses, where the left lens has a lot of crazing and surface imperfections due to the anti-scratch coatings wearing off/out prematurely. A previous pair of lenses on the same frame did the same thing on the right lens. It could be the metal used in the frame (though it's not exactly kryptonite or anything), or it could've been in reaction to the environment I'd worn them in... dunno.

Even if only one of 100,000 who experienced this problem (a reasonable figure, I think - the optometrist in my case said it happened occasionally on glasses), it would still be a fairly large headache for Apple to keep ahead of.

/P

diamond

[Gary W. Longsine (124661)]

The current scratch resistant coatings are problematic. I want Optically Transparent, Scratch-Resistant, Diamond-Like Carbon Coatings [lanl.gov] on my iPhone.

Re:Nokia N800 should be on Comparison Chart

[DoctorPepper (92269)]

Um, because maybe the N800 isn't a phone? You can do VOIP, but it doesn't have cell phone capabilities (I know, I own an N800).

Re:Pick one.

[cowscows (103644)]

Inches for the screen because Americans know what inches are.

MM for the thickness, because the point of the chart isn't the actual thickness, but the relative thickness of the iphone compared to the other phones. It's much easier for most people to compare the MM measurements against each other than it would be to compare 3/4" to 5/16" to 3/8", or whatever the imperial measurements would end up being. I deal with fractional measurements all day at work, and I still have to take a few seconds to think about it when I compare them.

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.

Re:"Optical quality" glass

[goombah99 (560566)]

Like plastics (including poly carbonate) there's optical quality and non-optical quality. It's not a hard concept.

Re:Whoever buys the iPhone is dumb.

[catdevnull (531283)]

I'm not a fanboy, but I'm just comparing specs from the perspective of a Mac user--

• Does it work with a Mac without using 3rd party software?
• Does it play music from your iTunes library you bought from the iTunes store?
• Does it have a 2 megapixel camera?
• Does it have a 3" screen?
• Does it have 4GB of memory?
• Does it have 802.11g WiFi?
• It might have an accelerometer to detect position, but does it have a proximity sensor or an ambient light sensor?
• Does it have an 8-hour talk time battery?
• Does the 8125's display match the 320 by 480 pixels (160 ppi) of the iPhone?

It seems to me, that they are just a little different.