Apple Announces iPhone 5 1052
Today Phil Schiller took to the stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, where he announced the long-expected iPhone 5. The casing is made entirely of glass and aluminum, and it's 7.6mm thick, which is 18% thinner than the iPhone 4S. It weighs in at 112 grams, which is 20% lighter than the 4S. Schiller confirmed that the iPhone 5 has a 4" display, with a resolution of 1136x640. It's a 16:9 aspect ratio. The screen is the same width as a 4S, but it's taller. To accommodate older apps, they either center the app or add black bars to make it look right. The new device also has LTE support. Tim Cook spoke earlier about the iPad, making some interesting claims: "Yes, we are in a post-PC world." He also claimed 68% tablet market share for the iPad, and says iPads account for 91% of tablet-based web traffic. The event is continuing, and we'll update this post as further announcements appear. A real-time liveblog is being quickly updated at Ars Technica. Update: 09/12 18:16 GMT by S : Further details below.
Further details: for the iPhone 5, Apple also added support for HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA. The dynamic antenna is an improvement over the 4S, and can switch connections. In the U.S. LTE partners are AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. On to processing: the iPhone 5 runs an A6 chip that's twice as fast as the A5, in addition to being 22% smaller. Rob Murray from EA got up on stage to show a racing game, claiming that the graphics "have been built to full console quality." Battery life for the phone will be roughly 8 hours for either 3G talk-time or browsing. Engadget has a feature-by-feature comparison to the 4S.The new phone's camera has an 8-Megapixel sensor, with a resolution of 3264x2448. It includes a hybrid IR filter, an f/2.4 aperture, and a five element lens. And a sapphire crystal lens cover, for whatever that's worth. There's a new feature for taking panorama shots (claimed 'breakthrough software,' though similar software already appears on actual cameras), and new software for automatically sharing pictures.
Apple also detailed the new connector, dubbed 'Lightning.' It's entirely digital, and 80% smaller than the old connector. It can be plugged in in either direction. Apple has created a bunch of adapters to let old cables and hardware work with Lightning. They then spoke at length about iOS 6, which will run on the iPhone 5, and demonstrated their new Maps app, which includes turn-by-turn directions (also in 3D using a 'cinematic camera'). "Apple is betting heavily on Passbook and other features to give it a leg up in the competition over Google Android and the upcoming Windows Phone 8." Pre-orders for the iPhone 5 start on Friday, and the device will start shipping on September 21. iOS 6 will roll out on September 19.
Apple's Eddie Cue went on stage to discuss changes to iTunes and the iPod. iTunes has been redesigned to work better on the iPad, and, more importantly, iCloud integration has been built in. They've also made a 'mini-player,' which takes up much less screen real estate. The new iTunes will be available in late October. Changes are coming for iPods as well. The new iPod nano looks like a mini iPod Touch. It's 38% thinner than the previous model, but has a bigger, 2.5" multitouch display. It contains an FM tuner with DVR functionality, it has a Home button, and it uses the Lightning connector. The iPod Touch is now 6.1 mm thick and weighs 88 grams. It has a Lightning connector port too, in addition to the headphone jack. The screen is bigger; it's a 4" display, the same as the iPhone 5. It runs on a dual-core A5 processor that's twice as fast as the previous model. Graphics are claimed to be seven times faster. The battery allows for 40 hours of audio playback or 8 hours of video playback. The camera has been upgraded to a 5MP sensor. The iPod Touch comes in colors now. But not grape. Apple also took the wraps off what they call "EarPods." They're like earbuds, but they don't form a seal within the ear. They let air flow continue, and a tiny speaker directs the sound into the ear. The EarPods will come standard with the iPhone 5 and with the new revisions of the iPod Nano, and iPod Touch.
post-PC world you can't code on ios and the scree (Score:4, Insightful)
post-PC world you can't code on ios and the screen is to small to do big typing / excel type work.
Re: post-PC world you can't code on ios and the sc (Score:5, Insightful)
post-PC doesn't mean that the PC isn't around anymore. It just means it's not the main device in most people's lives.
Re:But Nextstep software.... (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>You can see what you are doing on a Pad. and get a full keyboard for typing.
In other words walk past the iPad in the store and buy a small laptop instead. Got it. Tablets are really just small internet-connected TVs..... passive entertainment devices. Laptops are the better choice for people who need to do actual work.
Re:But Nextstep software.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, that completely depends on what your definition of "actual work" is. What you consider "actual work" others might not. I'm sure a construction worker believes that you tinkering on a computer all day is "actual work".
Yawn (Score:4, Funny)
iPhone whatever...but will it blend?
Apple can't use LTE (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Where are the lawyers from Samsung? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Apple can't use LTE (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Apple can't use LTE (Score:5, Funny)
Samsung jumped the gun with that one. Apple wisely waited for the key breakthrough, the one that makes the ocean look bluer and your kids look happier.
Re:iOS had pano before (Score:5, Informative)
Samsung's panorama feature has been around since at least the Omnia. And it was a function in the Phone app, not a separate app.
An innovative 5th row of icons (Score:5, Funny)
My T-Mobile G1 has 5 rows of icons. I expect Apple will sue HTC and win over this innovation that HTC obviously stole years ago.
Obligatory TheOatmeal Reference (Score:5, Funny)
My word. (Score:4, Interesting)
How can people get excited by this stuff? The original iPhone was amazing, but surely these 20% thinner/faster/smaller/wider/etc. incremental changes should not be causing the tech world to collectively cream in their pants.
The Onion of course nails this phenomenon perfectly -- starting at 0:21. http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-unveils-muchanticipated-iphone-4se,29489/ [theonion.com]
Re:My word. (Score:4, Interesting)
And it's usually the iLovers who label anybody and everybody that levels the slightest bit of criticism at an Apple product an "iHater." Case in point: your reply, and the fact that my comment was modded down despite being a perfectly valid point.
It cracks me up because I'm not an iHater at all. I still have my Mac Classic tucked away somewhere, and I've owned a Macbook and an iMac before my current MB Pro, as well as numerous iPods and an iPhone 3G. At the same time, I'm reasonable enough to see through the marketing noise and oohs and aahs and silvery shiny facade and say hey, this is really nothing new.
But whatever -- lesson learned; you simply do NOT criticize Apple on Slashdot.
post pc my ass (Score:5, Insightful)
"Yes, we are in a post-PC world."
Who is "we"? Certainly it's not anyone who does work on a computer, or anyone who supports computers that people do work on, or anyone who creates things that people use to do work on a computer. Those poor clods are still stuck in the "PC runs damn near every aspect of business" world.
Fragmentation (Score:4, Insightful)
What is Apple going to do about this?
Why can't old apps dynamically adapt to the new screen size? The iPad has been out for how long now?
Further evidence that this isn't your dad's Apple computer anymore. Back in the early days of Mac, Apple specifically told developers to not make assumptions about the hardware, screen size, processor speed, etc.
Re:Fragmentation (Score:5, Insightful)
iOS6 is supported all the way back to the iPhone 3GS. How is this creating any fragmentation?
Re:Fragmentation (Score:5, Informative)
Well they can't. The API doesn't give developers that capability. Other programming environments (ie, Android, Java, Windows... pretty much all of them) work with a layout system that doesn't guarantee exact positioning very well, but does work on different aspect ratios and densities automatically. iOS uses absolute positioning, so developers have to code specifically to each new screen (save for some special cases where they can get away with it, ie doubling of linear density).
iOS has supported dynamic positioning since iOS 2. Bad developers use absolute positioning, not iOS.
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UIKit/Reference/UIView_Class/UIView/UIView.html%23//apple_ref/occ/instp/UIView/autoresizingMask [apple.com]
There have always been at least two screen sizes in iOS. Portrait and landscape. iPad adds two more.
The "iOS doesn't support dynamic layout" thing is something I see thrown out by Android developers/supporters all the time, and it's just not true at all.
Why go thin? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, but why is it that every single iPhone I see is covered by a huge honkin rubber protective case?
From what I have seen Apple should quit trying to make the thinnest iPhone possible and instead make something that can survive a drop.
This pisses me off for so many reasons... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultimately, this product seems to be one that is geared towards fragmenting their own user-base. It's unhealthy for them as a company, and it's not remotely helpful to the consumer.
Re:This pisses me off for so many reasons... (Score:5, Informative)
The biggest difference between Google Maps and Apple's maps is not immediately obvious. Apple get their mapping data from other companies, for example with TomTom supplying street data. That is what Google was doing about five years ago when they decided to start their own data gathering project, of which Street View was just a part.
Google analyses Street View images for things like speed limit and junction signs, the names of businesses, numbers on the front of houses, street signs, road markings and so forth. This gives them a lot of metadata about the world. They also gather data from their users, and allow corrections to be made very quickly (TomTom only releases data sets a couple of times a year, and often things like removed speed cameras take years to disappear).
Google doesn't just map the world, it understands it. Maybe in a few years we will see Apple cars driving around photographing our streets but from the point they are at now they have a long, long way to go to catch up with Google.
Re:meh (Score:5, Funny)
If Jobs did the presentation it would be amazing.
Re:meh (Score:5, Funny)
If Jobs did the presentation it would be amazing.
I'd definitely be amazed if I saw a dead guy give a presentation.
Re:meh (Score:5, Funny)
I've seen some where I'm almost sure the presenter was dead...
Re:meh (Score:5, Funny)
I've seen some where I'm almost sure the presenter was dead...
.. and several where I wish he was.
Re:meh (Score:5, Funny)
"Woooo!!!!" *waving arms running to one side of the stage*
"Woooo!!!!" *waving arms running back to the other side of the stage*
"Woooo!!!!" *waving arms running to middle of the stage*
"Woooo!!!!" *standing at the podium drenched in sweat*
Re:meh (Score:5, Funny)
"Ladies and Gentlemen, Mesdames et Messieurs, Damen und Herren, from what was once an inarticulate mass of lifeless tissues, may I present a cultured, sophosticated, Man About Town..."
Re:meh (Score:5, Funny)
"Mmmmm. Rawrrrrr. Brainssss."
Re:meh (Score:5, Funny)
I think a iZombie Jobs presentation would be awesome to watch. see him start chewing on tim cooks head as the crowd screams. if only there were an app for that.
Re:meh (Score:5, Funny)
If Jobs did the presentation it would be amazing.
Oh, and one more thing....BRAAAAAINNNNNS!
Re:meh (Score:5, Funny)
Don't you mean....
Liiiiiverrrrs!
remember when slashdot was good?! (Score:5, Funny)
less storage than the Library of Congress
Lame.
Re:remember when slashdot was good?! (Score:5, Funny)
Lame. But lots and lots of people will buy it.
Still, Thorsten Heins at RIM is probably breathing huge sighs of relief. I don't know what the CEO of Nokia does, as I've never really studied vampires.
Re:remember when slashdot was good?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:remember when slashdot was good?! (Score:5, Funny)
This seems to fragment it a little more.
Don't you DARE talk about Apple and fragmentation, else ye be cast out of the land! There is NO Apple fragmentation. That be the realm of Android, so say we all!
Re:remember when slashdot was good?! (Score:5, Informative)
Little bit paranoid I think. Remotely transacting with NFC isn't practical. If you have a big enough signal to activate it you will everything in range and bugger up all kinds of other radios. When the response comes back it will be incredibly low power so you will need an amazing and very bulky receiver to catch it from more than a few centimetres away. Under ideal conditions.
Maybe someone could brush past you and transact with the phone in your pocket. They would have to linger a moment for it to happen though. Even then the payment systems don't actually allow phone to phone or card to card transfers, only phone/card to merchant. So they need a merchant account, which means it will be traceable. And with your phone the charge appears on your phone bill and is paid at the end of the month, so you can contest it.
People have been using NFC for all kinds of payments for years now in Japan and I'm sure elsewhere. Oyster in the UK is NFC, and I know Germany and France both use NFC for transport too. I don't recall a single instance of anyone ever being robbed by NFC scanner. It would be simpler to just steal the card/phone.
Re:remember when slashdot was good?! (Score:5, Informative)
Ok, dumb-dumb, you're mixing up NFC with RFID.
No he's not. Disabling the NFC chip, if possible, is the second thing I'd do if I was forced to own a phone that had such functionality -first, I'd not buy one. RFID was a precursor to NFC. It's main benefit is two-way communications, not just one-way.
NFC standards cover communications protocols and data exchange formats, and are based on existing radio-frequency identification (RFID) standards including ISO/IEC 14443 and FeliCa.[3] The standards include ISO/IEC 18092[4] and those defined by the NFC Forum, which was founded in 2004 by Nokia, Philips and Sony, and now has more than 160 members. The Forum also promotes NFC and certifies device compliance.[5]
NFC builds upon RFID systems by allowing two-way communication between endpoints, where earlier systems such as contactless smart cards were one-way only.[6] Since unpowered NFC "tags" can also be read by NFC devices,[2] it is also capable of replacing earlier one-way applications. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_field_communication [wikipedia.org]
Besides, as we use these little computers (with cellphone functionality, attached), we can expect our information on them to be compromised through many vectors. If I were Apple, I'd have made sure that all personally identifying info (contacts list, notes, browser history, etc) on the iPhone was encrypted out of the box. No app could take data from any other app if they were secured with powerful encryption. I'm not a Luddite, but I'm at the point where I'm giving up my iPhone for a cheap Motorola clamshell. I just don't need all those 'bells and whistles', nor the headaches from losing my entire checking account to someone with a sniffer in a crowd... nor the poor service from AT&T, inconsistent billing, and their iPhone tax.
Re:remember when slashdot was good?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Irony is that it CAN wirelessly stream video to your HDTV. Still funny though.
Re:remember when slashdot was good?! (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory pedantism
Pedantry
Lines will be short (Score:4, Informative)
Samsung was waiting for the presentation to have an official confirmation that iPhone 5 will have LTE...
Now, they'll ask for a ban of the device and people who will preorder will take the risk of waiting for ages before having their brand new phone...
So the lines may be quite short after all... Because people want their breand new toy NOW and not in a uncertain future...
Re:meh (Score:5, Interesting)
3G worldphone, LTE, and decent battery life. This is actually impressive, though we've been waiting 2 years for it.
If it let you out of the Apple sandbox if you wanted, then it would be the best smartphone by far. But that sandbox is a major detractor.
Re:meh (Score:5, Informative)
Re:meh (Score:5, Funny)
LTE = Incoming Samsung Lawsuit.
Wow, I totally had that initialism wrong.
Re:meh (Score:5, Informative)
If you are waiting for something for 2 years, and the competitors are already offering it, it's not impressive, but just about caching up with competition.
Re:meh (Score:4, Informative)
3G worldphone, LTE, and decent battery life. This is actually impressive, though we've been waiting 2 years for it.
If it let you out of the Apple sandbox if you wanted, then it would be the best smartphone by far. But that sandbox is a major detractor.
Note just the 3G is worldphone. There will be separate iPhone 5 models for international LTE. From http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html [apple.com] there are 3 models:
* GSM model A1428*: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 4 and 17)
* CDMA model A1429*: CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B (800, 1900, 2100 MHz); UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 1, 3, 5, 13, 25)
* GSM model A1429*: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 1, 3, 5)
Re:meh (Score:4, Funny)
"What's wrong with me?!"
A lot of things. You go for functionality over fashion accessories. You go against the herd mentality by not letting others decide what's good for you. You are showing clear signs of a cognitive person and that's now allowed in the era where everybody is supposed to suck Steve Jobs' dick (even a dead one).
This clearly makes you a sociopath. Ask any Apple fanboy.
Re:meh (Score:5, Insightful)
But Android has 80% of the market, right? How is buying an iPhone "going with the herd"? Aren't you getting that backwards?
Re:meh (Score:5, Insightful)
You go against the herd mentality
Don't most Android fanboys like to talk up the fact that Android has far more marketshare than the iPhone now? So can you really say that you're going against a "herd mentality" by buying a product that has the marketshare lead?
Re:meh (Score:5, Funny)
I don't even want it. What's wrong with me?!
You are ugly, have poor fashion sense and I simply don't like you ...
There, is that enough ? :)
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's more that they are voicing the thing that most of us are thinking - that Apple's hype is grossly overrated. Which explains why they have to resort to suing everyone else now.
Re:Looks nice so far (Score:5, Funny)
yes, when you only get one choice it's nice if it aligns somewhat with your preferences.
don't know what those silly Android folks are thinking with making lots of different styles and shapes. how does anyone know what they are supposed to want?
Re:Looks nice so far (Score:5, Funny)
It's simple really, iPhones are for skinny people who wear tight pants in order show off their junk. Droids are for IT fatboys who still wear cargo pants.
Oh yeah?? (Score:4, Insightful)
But but, Steve Jesus Jobs said "3.5 inch was the MOST PERFECT EVAAAR phone size"... and all you fanbois were falling over each other bashing Samsung and Android for large screen size. whatever happened to that????
Re:Oh yeah?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Next year, the iMessiah introduced multitasking on the iPhone. But it has sucky "badges" to annoy and interrupt you.
Next year, the great prophet showed a new notification system with a notification bar at the top that could be pulled down to reveal a tray of notifications from various apps that wanted your attention. Wow, what magic will Apple think of next!
In another year, I don't remember which one, Steve the great profit, er, um. . . I mean prophet, said that "7 inch tablets are dead on arrival". The crowd cheered.
One great thing about the iPhone is perpetual continuous warranty coverage forever and ever. Amen. Warranty lasts until next year when next product is announced. Therefore the iFaithful have continuous coverage. (Unless you're a heretic!)
Re:...until now (Score:5, Funny)
One of the keys to Apple's success is the unshakeable conviction that "Nobody wants X--until Apple figures out how to do it right."
Riiiiight...so the antenna snafu was a feature for easily hanging on unwanted calls, right?
Re:Looks nice so far (Score:5, Funny)
Even better, they could combine the "SS" with the new "Lightning" connector, and shape the S's like lightning bolts! Think about how cool would that be! ... what?
Or even 1280x768 on the new BlackBerry (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Still not HD? (Score:5, Interesting)
For a company that wants to be seen as being on the leading edge they could have at least tried competing with the GS3.
HD on a 4 inch screen is like expecting Klipsch loudspeaker performance from a pair of ear buds. Now I'm not saying everyone will have the same experience, but I'm already wearing reading glasses (began at the ripe old age of 28) and am happy to be able to focus on anything within 2 feet, I'm not about to care about HD on a puny display.
"What's that little white blur?"
"That's the opposing team quarterback.
Re:Still not HD? (Score:5, Funny)
What's the problem? You just attach a big magnifying glass in front of the screen, like 'Brazil'.
Re:Still not HD? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Still not HD? (Score:5, Informative)
To be fair, the GS3 was released only 3 months ago. I don't know if it would be possible for them to adjust their design in the time between the specs for GS3 being released and their production needing to start. Now not competing with the display on the Galaxy Nexus (also a full 720p display and released 9 months ago)... that's a bit harder to understand.
Re:Still not HD? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now not competing with the display on the Galaxy Nexus (also a full 720p display and released 9 months ago)... that's a bit harder to understand.
Well they've backed themselves into a corner with having absolute pixel positioning, so you can't just arbitrarily change the pixel count like you can on an OS with a UI layout manager. Sorry, let me re-phrase that: on a proper OS. They got away with it once by quadrupling the pixels, but they can't do that again (even if the tech was possible, there wouldn't be any point since we're at the limit of human eye capability). To go to something like 1240x720 would require all sorts of weird scaling, and not look very good. Soooo... what can they do? Maintain the pixel width and add black bars, and put some API for the developers to work around it. I'm very glad I'm not a iOS developer now, I have no idea how they can support that without it being pretty hacky.
Re:Since when? (Score:5, Funny)
Hype and reality distortion.
Re:Since when? (Score:5, Insightful)
Computting to the masses what pot are the smoking when the set the price point then? OLPC is computting to the masses, a cheap dell is computting to the masses, $1000+ macbook is to the elite
Re:Since when? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple since their inception has been about bringing computing to the masses.
Generally, bringing something to "the masses" includes lowering the price, not raising it. Oh, and having a larger market share than your competitor, not a smaller one.
Re:Something shiny! (Score:5, Funny)
It's not going to change your life, get you laid
You don't know my wife...
Re:Something shiny! (Score:4, Funny)
I must concede your point. If your married and your spouse happens to like these shiny toys and you get them one, it just might get you get you laid after all.
Re:Something shiny! (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, I only hear these claims uttered sarcastically by neckbeards and other tiresome people in the geekverse. It's like how I only hear "The Earth is 6000 years old" from atheists. And who gives a shit what connector it is as long as the device comes with a cable and I can get a replacement if necessary?
Back in the day geeks and nerds advocated competition and having multiple players in the market- it's how PCs got so cheap with a zillion motherboard and peripheral makers. People who really care about tech should hope for success for Apple, Android and, yes, Windows 8 phones so they can continue to fight it out. Anything else is fanboy horseshit. Yes, being a basher is simply fanboyism of a different platform- just as bad, if not worse.
Re:Something shiny! (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, in 3G might have sucked in the US, but it worked perfectly well here around.
Well, my Nexus does have 4.1.1, no problems. It's a little bit on the small side (with only 4.65" and a little bit more pixel than the brand new iPhone 5), it works surprisingly well, I had the second battery pack and external charger picked up the same day I got it, ...
And yes, personally the non-changeable (by the user) battery is a show stopper. I don't need it often, but I do manage to run the battery dry (especially if I was sloppy about keeping it charged up before leaving home), and fixed battery devices (that includes all iDevices but also many Android tablets) don't offer an answer to that.
Having just run on such a fixed-battery device as primary device, I really felt myself getting paranoid about always having it hooked up to the charger, be it in the car, at home, in the train, and so on. (And despite progress in this relation, there are quite a bit of trains that still have no power outlets, now explain me how you plan to use your iPhone for entertainment on your next 18 hours trip across Europe, I mean you'll be sleeping perhaps 6-8 hours of this, but 10-12 hours usage is still hard). And yes, I've been reading ebooks on my mobile devices years before ebooks become mainstream.
Re:Remember CmdrTaco's story for the first iPhone? (Score:5, Informative)
No, I don't remember that. Because it was CmdrTaco's story for the first iPod.
Re:Remember CmdrTaco's story for the first iPhone? (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, go check this out. They're going to print money with this thing.
And that they did...
Same 640 pixel width (Score:5, Informative)
1136x640? What kind of crack-smoking resolution is that? It's not any kind of standard and it isn't an integer multiple of the existing iPhone resolutions.
It's an exact 1x the 640 pixel width of the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and iPod touch 4. As I understand the summary, retina apps will look the same, just with borders on the top and bottom.
Re:Same 640 pixel width (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, letterboxing? Really? Really? Did Apple just never learn how to make an API for UI elements that doesn't suck? No, that's not right, Cocoa was fine; they must have just reinvented the wheel for iOS, poorly.
Seriously, when I run an Android app on a device with a different screen resolution, it just works. It's almost as if they designed for the idea that not every device would have exactly the same screen! I wonder how they realized that so far in advance! How did nobody ever think of that befo... oh, wait, no, every damn UI design for the desktop has realized this since back when a "phone" was that thing tied to a jack on the wall with a length of copper cable.
Re:Same 640 pixel width (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's view is that an app should be hand-customized to support the resolution and screen size of the device, not shoehorned in by an automated scaling routine. So the last thing Apple wants to do is tell developers, "Don't worry, the API will fit your app onto the new display." What Apple's API will do is allow developers to check the screen size and take advantage of the extra screen space in a way that fully exploits it. Based on the way that Apple's development environment works, this should be pretty trivial for the vast majority of apps. And for those developers who don't care enough to bother, the app will look exactly the way it did before, down to the pixel.
Re:Same 640 pixel width (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah. I miss the times when web pages were finely crafted for a specific resolution.
No, not letterboxing. Apps already deal with this (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, letterboxing? Really? Really? Did Apple just never learn how to make an API for UI elements that doesn't suck?
Yes, in fact they did it from the release of the SDK.
An app has ALWAYS had to take into account the screen might shrink somewhat for an incoming call; it increases the header size.
The same auto-layout logic (again present since the release of the SDK) would also handle simply expanding an app to fill the screen. Some apps might look a little funny until they get updated, but not too bad.
If Apple had increased the WIDTH, then there would have been major issues as many fewer app developers plan for that varying.
The question is if Apple is going to let apps auto-resize, or if they will present bars until you re-compile and re-submit the app. But the point is that apps already are handling variable heights to some degree so this is not a tricky thing.
Re:Same 640 pixel width (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, iOS does support auto-resizing. Unfortunately:
No, that's not right, Cocoa was fine; they must have just reinvented the wheel for iOS, poorly.
No, Cocoa was not fine. The autoresizing system Cocoa uses sucks. iOS 5 supports it just fine, though, but it's nearly useless. And support is there by default, as there are still a few times when the view size changes in iOS and you need to rely on Cocoa Touch's autoresize:
1. Landscape versus Portrait. The view will autoresize by default. Unfortunately, autoresize is so bad at what it does, that I wound up overriding it and just manually setting the bounding boxes of the widgets on screen. I expect most apps do that because the autoresize support is so awful. (Apparently this is the reason why, until iOS 4 or something, Xcode's default template for iOS apps disabled the portrait mode entirely.)
2. The view shrinks because you're in a call. When in a call, the status bar doubles in size and your app loses several pixels off the top. (I think it's 22 in retinal, but whatever, you get the idea.) This is something that just about no app bothers testing for, despite the iOS simulator including explicit support for testing. But it's another thing autoresizing is supposed to deal with.
Fortunately, another AC responder indicates that they're adding a new "constraint based" system for iOS 6. Sadly, having also written a Cocoa app that used the new support for that, this is almost certainly going to be even worse. It's call "auto layout" and there are some 200,000 Google results on how to disable the damned thing [google.com].
Re:Same 640 pixel width (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, letterboxing? Really? Really? Did Apple just never learn how to make an API for UI elements that doesn't suck? No, that's not right, Cocoa was fine; they must have just reinvented the wheel for iOS, poorly.
There is an API. There are two actually, springs and struts and (as of iOS 6) autolayout. Exact same APIs that were on the Mac side.
The problem is developers, unless they supported the iPad as well, tended to ignore these APIs meaning if Apple just starts resizing apps they'll probably break a lot of bad code. Or things like games that only planned on targeting the original resolution.
So Apple played it safe and stuck apps compiled for iOS 5 into a legacy mode.
Re:Why the weird screen resolution? (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds like they wanted to keep the same width and just make it taller until it got to 16:9.
Re:Post-PC world? (Score:4, Insightful)
PCs have always been general purpose computers. The iPhone is not.
Re:Post-PC world? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, yes. It is. An iPhone is a general purpose computer in a handheld form factor.
Keep in mind that a general-purpose computer is distinct from an ASIC (application-specific integrated controller), where the former is programmable and the latter is not (except when it is).
But even beyond that, an iPhone bears all the hallmarks of a PC: a CPU, RAM, persistent storage, run dynamic modern OSes, and allow various input/output devices to be connected. In fact, general purpose computers are becoming so cheap and effective that they're showing up in more and more cases where ASICs may have been used in the past, because it costs a lot less to write software than to design and build an ASIC.
The distinction between a "smart phone" and a PC is almost exclusively one of marketing.
Re:Post-PC world? (Score:5, Insightful)
An iPhone is a general purpose computer
Nope. With the artificial restrictions that Apple places on the device, it is certainly not general purpose.
Re:Post-PC world? (Score:4, Informative)
They don't realize that they hold a PC in their hand which just so happens to have a phone app.
They don't want a PC in their hand. It's scary complicated.
Re:Rounded corners! Rectangular Design! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:demographic? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:OK, place your bets (Score:4, Interesting)
It is right there in the presentation. Black bars around most apps until they are upgraded.
I admit that is only an aesthetic defect, but aesthetics seems to be a major concern for many Apple fans.
Time travelling googlers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lightning (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Meh (Score:4, Informative)
There is still no serious Android competitor to the new iPad, with its unparalleled 2048x1536 display.
Did you hear about the 1920x1200 Amazon Fire HD for $299? It's 8.9" rather than 10", but it is still a very serious iPad competitor.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
" Nevermind that the iPhone was banned for two years in Korea."
Holy shit, really?
Citation?
Re:Meh (Score:5, Informative)
You mean, other than the Asus screen being brighter and having better viewing angles?
BB (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Durability (Score:5, Informative)
Re:iPad traffic (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:iPad traffic (Score:5, Interesting)
No. Mine was, "wow, iPad users must really like using their devices."
Re:iPad traffic (Score:5, Funny)
My first reaction was "Wow, iPad users watch a lot of porn."
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:not impressed? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, on Slashdot they've been pretty histrionic every time around--even the first one.
Re:No contract plans? (Score:5, Informative)
I'd like to buy one outright and go w/ a no-contract plan. Anyone know how that works?
Yes Apple User I can help you here, it works well and is pretty easy.
When they are available, you go to the store and tell the salesperson that you would like to buy an iPhone 5. The salesperson says 'ok' and grabs one and then tells you what the price is for an iPhone 5 with no contract. You then use your payment method of choice and pay the correct amount of money. Once the transaction is completed, the salesperson hands you your new iPhone 5. You then walk out of the store.
Congratulations, if you have made it this far, you have done what we in the industry call a "purchase". You have now "bought" an iPhone 5 and in most cases you now "own" it.
Please reply if you have trouble understanding these instructions, and Ill do my best to explain how this "purchasing" process works.