Next iPhone — Front-Facing Camera, A4 Processor 327
As a quarter million pre-orderers wait for their iPad on Saturday, the millions of iPhone users can start speculating in earnest about the next gen iPhone. The rumors start by saying "It will be dubbed the 'iPhone HD' and will include a double resolution display, a front facing camera, multitasking support, and the blazing A4 processor."
And this is different from the 10000 other rumors (Score:5, Insightful)
...because ?
Remarkable, though... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And this is different from the 10000 other rumo (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry, the other 10000 rumors will all get their own Slashdot articles too.
Multi-tasking : do not want (Score:2, Insightful)
Multi-tasking is a bad idea. Most users are not computer professionals.
Hopefully Not (Score:5, Insightful)
The iPhone's refusal to adopt Flash, coupled with its huge popularity, is among the greatest forces driving development away from Flash and towards alternate platforms. This is a good thing.
Recurring lesson about Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
If there's one thing history teaches about rumors regarding upcoming Apple products, it's that nobody talking knows anything. If anyone gets any Apple-product prediction right it's because enough monkeys pounding on typewriters will eventually write Shakespeare.
Remember how the iPad was supposed to have a front-facing camera, an awesome chess game, full 1080p HD video, solar charging, biometric security, etc. - and wasn't going to just be a fat iPod Touch? Yeah.
Sure the next iPhone will be an improvement. Duh. Anything more than that is pure rampant rabid speculation.
Source Article (Score:5, Insightful)
What actually kicked off this latest wave of speculation was an an article [wsj.com] from the Wall Street Journal, stating that Apple is developing a CDMA version of the iphone for Verizon. The WSJ is a fairly reputable source that wouldn't print unless they had some solid evidence, so this should be interpreted as a bit more than a typical rumor.
Re:And this is different from the 10000 other rumo (Score:3, Insightful)
And then, 24 hours later, they will all get their dupe too. And then another 24 hours later half of those will get a second dupe because the posters don't even read Slashdot themselves.
Re:Not so HD ? (Score:3, Insightful)
And do you seriously think iPhone has the CPU capability to crunch 1080p H.264 video?
Re:Hopefully Not (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a good thing.
Since you've been modded to "Interesting" I think it is fair to ask "Why?"
Why would nerds want this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Can I assign my songs directly as ringtones yet?
Can I add my own audio and video codecs yet?
Can I take my phone to another carrier without Apple trying to brick my phone with a firmware update yet?
Can I multitask yet?
Can I use Flash (and watch Hulu) yet?
Yep, I think my n900 is still the phone for nerds. I have a philosophical issue with Apple telling me what i can and can't do with hardware I purchased, when there is no technical reason I cannot do it. I sacrifice a little convenience (the huge app store, Apple's admittedly-slick interface) for my freedom.
Re:Hopefully Not (Score:4, Insightful)
I wish they could do something about the battery life though.
Re:Hopefully Not (Score:5, Insightful)
The general view is that flash is a relatively closed format (yeah, it's an open spec, but let's face it, no one else has a player comparable to Adobe's implementation), based on a patented codec, wrapped up with a rather annoying DRM layer.
Personally, my view is that flash is simply annoying... it's slow, clunky, sucks up CPU time, interacts poorly with the mouse and keyboard, is only barely cross-platform (let's face it, Linux gets the short end of the Flash stick) and is generally less elegant than an integrated browser solution. Well, at least for video (I never play flash games, so if it sticks around in that niche, hey, so be it).
Re:front facing, rear facing (Score:5, Insightful)
is there some reason why a camera cannot be flexible to face whatever direction the user wants?
Moving parts, hinges, even rotating mirrors, are failure-prone and take a lot of space. Most phone with front-facing cameras use two smaller lenses instead and leave out any moving parts -- my 4-year-old Sony Ericsson K610 has a VGA front camera for videoconferencing and a 2MP rear-facing camera for proper pictures. I am pretty sure that the iPhone will use the same concept.
Re:Not so HD ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering your average camera phone lens can barely resolve a barcode, I'm not quite sure what the point of HD shooting would be.
Re:Remarkable, though... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ads cost millions of dollars. Rumors cost nothing.
Re:Multi-tasking : do not want (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever use a Windows Mobile device? Background tasks on mobile hardware should be avoided whenever possible. Not because it's hard to multi-task, mind you—it's just hard to enjoy a smartphone when you have to constantly hunt for random process that are killing your battery life and/or slowing your phone to a crawl.
What alternatives? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a bit of stretch, especially since the iPhone currently doesn't support any of the alternatives to Flash either (Silverlight, Java, HTML5).
Re:And this is different from the 10000 other rumo (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that the non-Apple-prohibition on multitasking is really useful, but that sequence of steps can be shortened - the apps save state when the home button is pressed (or really should - the apple ones like sms, email etc do), so step 1 and 2 are the same. Locate app and open app can be combined - if it's on the same screen then you just need to touch, else swipe and touch.
8 and 9 are not needed - the app opens to where it was when you pressed the home button in step 1.
Paste.
Step 11 can be removed with careful copying - you just added it to pad the list.
I want the ability to enable multitasking for non-Apple apps as much as the next person, but the iPhone UI was designed from the outset to not need it - it would just be useful to have. Sort of like the one button mouse on OS X - you can do everything in the OS with the left mouse button *only*, but adding the context click with the right mouse button adds usefulness. It's not a requirement. (and yes, I have a Microsoft 2 button mouse with scrollwheel on my iMac, the computer police can come and arrest me any time).
Re:Front facing camera? (Score:2, Insightful)
Though I think I'm just in an argumentative mood today, probably shouldn't be posting to slashdot right now...
Re:And this is different from the 10000 other rumo (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell me, what is one of the most popular apps on multi tasking phones? Memory cleanup programs.
Then why haven't I needed such program with Symbian (apart from the early 2000 phones) nor Windows Mobile?
Besides, why would you need a memory cleanup program? You can just close the program that is taking too much memory.
Re:More speculating? (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't understand - this is slashdot. The rules work like this:
1. Dredge up some random rumour site from the depths of the internet with possible Apple product info. This is usually wild speculation and based on the Mountain-Dew-fueled ramblings of an Apple fan.
2. Bash this "finished product" on slashdot because it doesn't do x, y or z, or because it doesn't run Linux and use totally patent free technology.
3. Complain that Apple is getting free publicity and that they are mentioned too much.
4. Bring up comparisons to Apple in totally unrelated stories. Go to step 3 several times.
5. Apple announces product.
6. Complain that product is nothing like the rumour sites *guaranteed* it would be.
7. Complain that it's locked down (again) and that anyone who buys one for any reason is a clueless sheep.
8. Claim that the product is "proof" that Apple will soon fall.
9. Wait for netcraft to confirm it.
10. Assuming non-confirmation after two quarters of continued profitability for Apple, and large sales numbers of the "doomed" product, go to step 1.
Re:Hopefully Not (Score:2, Insightful)
Improving on Flash? Good.
Steve Jobs dictating how to run the internet? I'm not so thrilled.
Re:Front facing camera? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Multi-tasking : do not want (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why would nerds want this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, but one point you failed to realize: the iPhone is not nor ever was for nerds & geeks. It was for everyone else. And there are a lot more everyone elses. And I for one consider lack of flash to be a feature, not a bug. And as someone who worked in video production in the earlier part of the last decade, H.264 won and for very good reasons. Primarily, it's the best Codec available. We now have a standard to which all devices/software should be writing & playing. The last thing I want to see is a return to Codec Hell.
Regardless I have heard from several people inside ATT that they are loosing exclusively and we're likely to see a CDMA iPhone for Verizon or Sprint later this year. Although if the wireless carriers in the US begin deploying 4G technology (which is supposed to be the same for everyone), then maybe we'll finally see a phone that will work on all carriers.
Re:Recurring lesson about Apple (Score:3, Insightful)
Depends on the source of the rumor. Some sites got the iPad right when they predicted a large iPod Touch with 3G capabilities. But generally the rule is to wait til Apple makes an announcement.
Well in that case the source of the rumour doesn't really matter, since we have no way of verifying it before the fact. The fact that so many rumours are circulating means a ton of sites will get it right, even though their sources were probably non-existent and they were just guessing. Hell, I guessed the iPad would be a big iPod Touch with 3G, I certainly don't have any insider sources.
My prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
Better 3G chip to go with all the carriers that have rolled out various kinds of HSDPA
Same CPU as the iPad (or more likely a version that cuts back the speed and power consumption to account for the smaller battery on the iPhone)
No multitasking (regardless of battery life concerns, Apple would need to "ruin" its perfect UI with some kind of task switcher feature)
No front facing camera (video calling has not taken off in the way phone carriers would like, especially in the US. AFAIK its almost non-existent on AT&T)
Rewritten bootloaders and security to make jailbreaking and unlocking harder
I suspect 802.11n will appear IF apple can find a low power chip that doesn't require devoting too much of the internal space of the iPhone to the antenna.
I predict that there will still be no support for:
Loading apps without going through the app store
Fast 2D drawing APIs (CoreSurface or whatever it is) being able to be used in official apps
External keyboards of any kind
Any peripheral where Apple doesn't get a cut from every unit sold.
Any kind of ability for apps to share data files with each other
Any kind of ability to load arbitrary files onto an iPhone (i.e. a generic "documents" folder)
I also predict that there will continue to be many reasons Apple will reject your app submission, all of which exist as official policy at Apple (and are known to the app store reviewers) and none of which Apple will ever disclose to developers. One of these "unwritten rules" is likely "no apps that mean less revenue for Apple carrier partners such as AT&T"
Re:Hopefully Not (Score:5, Insightful)
So its ok that Apple close everything down and make it so that you have to have a signed app (drm) to run anything on their phone, but not ok that flash is a closed format?
Also you say "a patented codec" you know Flash supports about 6 different video codecs and 6 different audio formats right?
On CPU time - the only reason it sucks cpu time on the Mac is because Apple doesn't publically document hardware acceleration for video players - essentially to do video on the Mac you have to use their slow Quicktime libs. In fact the only apps that use these secret api's are made by Apple (remember how Microsoft got a lot of flak over them being the only ones using secret tools/api's on Office to give them a competitive edge?). On my windows machine app - run of the mill Flash apps never seem to approach 10% cpu overhead in a worse case scenario. I have a 933 MHz Celeron based umpc that runs Windows XP and plays all flash apps (including hulu) just fine.
The one study that was done on the Nexus One showed that playing video on Flash 10 used about 6% of the battery resources overall.
Re:Hopefully Not (Score:2, Insightful)
So its ok that Apple close everything down and make it so that you have to have a signed app (drm) to run anything on their phone, but not ok that flash is a closed format?
Do you like erecting strawmen? Does it make you feel manly when you knock them down?
Packing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Flash on Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Today Linux is the only platform you can get an official 64-bit version of Flash.
Yup, and I have it installed. But it still isn't that great, and for video, inferior to an in-browser solution, IMHO. Heck, AFAIK, it still doesn't use hardware acceleration for video playback ('course, that may no longer be true now, I haven't checked recently).
Re:And this is different from the 10000 other rumo (Score:4, Insightful)
App Store is a seriously controlled environment and they already impose strict guidelines for developers. How does an idle application even eat up more battery? It's not like your RAM needs more power if it's used a little bit more. The background app doesn't need to do any drawing and is usually on pause (unless it needs to do certain tasks in the background, and then it makes sense).
Because the apps you want multitasking for aren't idle. That's the whole point. If an app doesn't have anything to do in the background, then who cares if it quits when you click the home button? Aside from a slightly longer start time, you won't even notice. The whole idea is to have IM apps that run constantly and music apps like Pandora and Last.fm that continue playing when you switch to another app.
Because you have to travel the menus to locate your app you just switched out from and load up whatever you were doing, and even to perform a quick copy-paste you need to:
1) save your document
2) close app 1
3) locate app 2
4) open app 2
5) copy
6) close app 2
7) locate app 1
8) load up the document you were working with
9) scroll to the point you wanted to paste to
10) paste
11) do the same again because your copypaste missed something
Yeah, seems really convenient and simple.
Your list has nothing to do with multitasking... It's entirely about switching between applications. If today's iPhone had 3rd party multitasking, the steps you listed wouldn't change, except:
Step 1: I haven't seen an iPhone app with a "save" gesture. Maybe some of them exist, but most apps just save your changes automatically.
Steps 8 & 9: Good iPhone apps (which, admittedly, is a small set) take care of these for you by saving their state when you quit.
Re:Flash? Unlocked? (Score:1, Insightful)
Did you forget that Photoshop was foremost a Mac product?
FTFY
Re:Hopefully Not (Score:3, Insightful)
So its ok that Apple close everything down and make it so that you have to have a signed app (drm) to run anything on their phone, but not ok that flash is a closed format?
Aww, apparently my other comment offended a moderator. Presumably they don't know what strawmen are. Here, let me explain: I never made any value judgment regarding the iPhone, you just made that part up. That's the strawman.
In fact, I couldn't care less how open or closed their platform is (and, TBH, if people really cared, they'd vote with their wallets, which they don't, so not only do I not care about the platform, I care even less about users bitching about it). What I care about is an open web based on open standards, and a browsing experience that isn't hampered by annoying plugins. If Apple maintaining a chokehold over the iPhone achieves that, hey, works for me, I'm not one of those fools who bought an iPhone and then was surprised to discover the platform was locked up nice and tight.
Also you say "a patented codec" you know Flash supports about 6 different video codecs and 6 different audio formats right?
Oh come on. Let's get real, here. 99% of Flash videos out there are based on H.264. Can I pack, say, Theora into a Flash container and have it play on my browser? No, of course not, because Adobe defines the defacto standard implementation, and so 99% of people would never be able to watch it.
Re:More speculating? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a fantastic set of straw man arguments, you clearly understand how to get an "insightful" moderation on slashdot very well. Congratulations.
The title should mention this is a rumor (Score:3, Insightful)