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iPhone 4 Rumors Rumble
padraic_93 writes "Information has become available which reveals development is underway for the new iPhone 4, as well as suggestions of features and Apple's plans for the phone.
A report on PinchMedia, which made repeated use of the term 'iPhone 4,' was cited on the website MacRumors, though the website admitted that such reports can often be forged. The report also made allusions to a 'Corporate Event' planned for June 28th — July 2nd 2010, which have been taken as referring to the next WWDC."
A related rumor holds that Apple has ordered 40-45 million 5-megapixel cameras, which might hint at new functionality.
Maybe they are only making ~21 million phones like they did with the current generation (according to the article).
What about the other 20 million cameras you ask? Well surely one facing the user as well as the rear camera, so that you can video call - functionality still lacking from the current lineup.
Tom...
Seriously, why is this news? We all know that a new revision will come down the road at some point. The only "new" information here (for me at least) is the ordering of the 5mp cameras...
What I found more interesting than what's posted here, is what Engadget reported yesterday:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/23/apple-planning-event-for-january-with-high-res-iphone-or-small/
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
Really? You're bitching that someone posted tech rumors and/or news to a tech website? I guess I'm not really surprised; Slashdotters always have to cry about something, even when all that's occurred is someone posting an article about the next iPhone, which is, believe it or not, a piece of technology. Next thing you know, people are going to start posting recipes to cooking websites!
Help & Account -> Classic Index -> Sections, mark the radio button below the red circle on the Apple line, no more Apple stories.
As much as you might hate Apple, it's still a technology company and Slashdot has an entire SECTION devoted to it. If you don't like it, don't have it on your index.
Stop whinging.
LOL. In case you've been sleeping under a rock in a different galaxy, here's a quick update: A) Slashdot is about, among other things, technology. B) Apple is a technology company. C) There ARE people who read this site, who are interested in the next iPhone. How dare they post an item about technology on Slashdot. It's completely insane!
Actually to be more correct it would be posting a rumor of a new recipe. Say, posting hushed rumblings of a new idea for Upside Down Flint Rubble Bubble Cake...
1. Click on the "Sections" header on the left.
2. Click on the very first radio button in the list of topics that appears.
3. Scroll down and click "Save".
4. ???
5. Profit!
This is Slashdot. Common sense is futile. You will be modded down.
What about the current generation of iPod touch which is missing the camera - and every man and his dog was expecting it to have one. Or even the tablet that is likely to be coming out next year. Apple does make devices other than the iPhone.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
... development is underway for the new iPhone 4...
I hate to break it to you but development for iPhone 4 was probably underway, oh, about a year or more ago. Heck, development for iPhone 5 features are probably underway right now as well. Apple is, among many things, a very forward-thinking company (like virtually all companies of their size and success) so they are developing many things that are years (plural) away from release.
In other words, this is news how? Who here didn't already know that development was underway?
Early 2000s, they're sprinkled here and there.
Although 1998 was a bumper year, a ton of Linus stories.
Linus has a kid
Linus talking about grandpa
Linus on Git
Linus Sightings
Linus moves to Moscow, Linus moves to Oregon, Linus on 2.4, Linus on 2.6, Linus a Fermilab, Linus shows up in * magazine, Linus suffers Ego-bump, * interviews Linus.
Same with RMS. RMS turns 50, RMS interviewed by *, etc
Slashdot is also user driven. If you don't write the fodder stories, they can't ever get approved. (I'm not saying which way it is either way).
When was the last time we had a story about Linus or RMS sneezing?
You've got to be joking. We heard how RMS thinks MySQL's mixed closed/open source is better than a pure GPL license. We got an article about how Linus should win the Nobel Peace Prize. Just do some searches for Stallman or Linus on Slashdot and you'll get the same drivel you do for jobs.
Personally, I think rumors about the latest and greatest tech gadgets are Slashdot's bread and butter, and the Apple haters are just infuriated the iPhone remains so popular.
E pluribus unum
To be fair the iPhone is an extremely significant piece of technology, both as a consumer handset and driving forward technological change. True, the new phone probably won't include much in the way of technological breakthrough - or even true innovation, but it will set the standard of the entire mobile phone industry by putting the tech in the hands of the mass market.
Anyway, if you're the kind of person who reads /. it's kind of expected that when a friend imparts that they intend to buy a 3GS, you should be able to respond "looking like a new one isn't being announced until June, then there's some lead time so yeah no point waiting around for the next one".
[citation needed] for phones taking 12MP photos. Additionally, in the case of camera phones, the true upgrades need to be done on the CMOS sensors, which are terrible in anything but broad daylight. "HD Video" from a camera phone is, as far as I have seen, almost always a joke as well. yes technically it may have more than 480 horizontal lines of resolution, but the quality has always lagged severely behind digital cameras and camcorders, and throwing more megapixels at it isn't the answer. The issue is that everyone wants devices that are smaller, thinner, have longer battery life, and can withstand abuse. Pro photographers and videographers still use huge cameras for a reason.
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4lb (8tbl) butter
4 cups (18oz) unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 cup milk
2tbl Flint
1.5 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
Preheat oven to 350.
Cream butter and sugar. Stir in eggs. Add half of the flour, mix. Add half of the milk, mix. Add the other half of the flour, then the other half of the milk. Fold in the flint and pour into your favorite upside down cake pan. Blow bubbles into the mixture with a straw. Bake for 45 min or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Let cool upside down for at least one hour before removing from the mold.
MP counts say nothing. I have used a 1.3MP digital camera from the early 00's that takes better pictures than every camera phone I ever used. Unless you get a phone with optical zoom you can almost be guaranteed the quality will be crap.
1 good megapixel is better than 8 crap ones
Why, it's almost like they're in alphabetical order or something.
"With mainstream phones going high with 12+MP en HD video cameras, frankly the 5MB I heard about the new phone are ludicrously pathetic."
Other way around, actually. A 12 MP (or even a 5 MP) sensor in a cell phone is a ludicrously pathetic marketing trick. As a practical matter, a typical cell phone lens is going to give you about 2 MP. Pairing that with a high resolution sensor just means you're measuring the blur more accurately, and wasting storage and processing capacity. Note - there ARE some (rare) cell phones that use bigger lenses, and those might actually get 3 or 4 MP, but definitely not 12.
You can measure the MTF yourself if you want. Last time I had this argument with somebody he actually posted a picture from his 5 MP cell phone camera and we compared with an appropriately blurred version from my 6 MP SLR. Guess what? His picture had an effective resolution of about 2 MP (and horrible noise). Which brings up another point - small lenses will always give you poor low light performance, but you make it much, much worse by trying to capture an crazy number of pixels to boot.
The cell phone appears to be the last bastion of the megapixel myth. Camera manufacturers have started giving up that marketing tactic, with newer cameras going to less resolution and emphasizing noise performance. If the rumors are true, it's actually too bad Apple has given into this ploy... although it's probably hard to source lower resolution sensors now.
Agreed. Not only that, but increasing the megapixels while having the same sensor size leads to more noise. I think 3MP is a good sweet spot for phone cameras. Just work on the optics and you could have something usable!
Especially with "Snappy" for the iPhone (in Cydia) you can bring up the camera app ready to take pictures in under a second.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
When was the last time we had a story about Linus or RMS sneezing? See what I mean?
That's because Linus and RMS are both a little bit wack while Steve Jobs...oh, wait a minute...never mind...
This ain't rocket surgery.
Would you say its safari to wait?
No... I wouldn't.
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
>?Apple haters are just infuriated the iPhone remains so popular.
I own a macbook and an iphone and I'm sick of the rumormill. No shit, Apple is updating a successful product? This doesnt need to be on slashdot or anywhere but applerumors.com.
What bugs me is that I dont hear about the new version of WinMo or even that much about Android here. Just iphone. Id love to see a well maintained mobile subsection of slashdot instead of this nonsense. But I suspect enough slashdot readers are more interested in flamewars and self-identifying with products to make these 'articles' popular. I guess I need to goto Ars to actually read about technology without the kiddie angle and poseurs.
The point being, we get front page news about mere rumour items for the Iphone (even when the news is trivial anyway - what's that you say? Apple might be planning an Iphone 4 after their 3rd Iphone? My, I was thinking they'd come out with the 5th version first - how shocking!), whilst actual full product releases from other phone companies, despite having much higher market share (e.g., Nokia at 40%; LG, Samsung, Motorola, and RIM are also ahead).
the next iPhone, which is, believe it or not, a piece of technology
Right now, it's not a piece of technology, it's a rumour. Products such as the Nokia 5800 however, are, believe it or not, pieces of technology.
Next thing you know, people are going to start posting recipes to cooking websites!
If this was a cooking website, it would be like being full of rumours about what you might be able to make with apples, whilst completely ignoring actual receipes involving any other kind of fruit.
So the answer to the question is: 10 years ago. That basically supports his point.
Anyway, I could understand a bias towards Linux, because Slashdot was traditionally a place for supporting Linux and open source in general. Today though it's an Apple forum. Kind of ironic given that this was once a place to support open systems...
Given the lenses that most of these camera phones use, typically 1 megapixel is more than enough. These cameras are Diffraction LImited Systems and thus throwing more pixels at it in the same size solves nothing.
To put it in simple language, the resolution limit of the camera is due to the diameter of the lens, not the number of pixels on the sensor. This is part of the reason why Canon went from the 14Megapixel sensor on the G10 to an 11 megapixel sensor on the G11. The G10 was diffraction limited, while the G11 roughly matched between the lens system and sensor. Thus, the two will produce pictures with equivalent resolution, despite one having fewer pixels than the other.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
If you can figure out how to get a raw image out of a camera phone then be my guest. They're usually not accessible. If anything, the sharpening steps that are applied act to cover up the low acquired resolution.
Camera manufacturers get away with it because almost nobody ever looks at their phone photos at anything close to full resolution. You can easily see the softness in a camera phone shot compared one from a decent camera, comparing full screen on a notebook. That's around 1.3 MP. Blown up full screen on a 1080P high def TV is still only a touch over 2 MP.
So when a camera phone can show full quality, no visible softness on a 1080p monitor then maybe it will be time to go to more than 2 MP.
Had to post all that anonymously, hey?
First off, I'm talking about resolution. I thought I made that clear. Resolution is the ability to distinguish (to resolve) two objects spaced a particular distance apart. I am NOT talking about image quality.
Now, it is quite possible your 12 MP cell phone camera produces visually higher quality images than other cell cameras, or even point and shoot cameras. That does NOT mean it is producing 12 MP worth of resolution, or anything like it.
A DSLR with a very good lens (or a medium/large format with a very good lens) IS the correct item to compare with. We're looking for the best gold standard possible. Again, we are comparing only resolving power. If your 12 MP sensor is not matched with a lens that is capable of providing a sufficiently sharp image then your sensor is being wasted. Again, it might be producing a very nice image, but an image that does not have 12 MP of resolving power.
Have you looked at your pictures zoomed in sufficiently so that you're actually seeing one image pixel per pixel on your screen?
Now, looking at the Pixon 12, it turns out it DOES NOT have a typical cell phone camera lens. That lens has an area that is many times what most cell phones have, and looks like it might even be made out of glass (instead of plastic). The thing even looks like it has multiple lens elements, and might even zoom! Of COURSE that's going to look good compared to any typical cell camera, and against point and shoots too. That IS a point and shoot lens. Again, notice in my post how I said "typical cell phone lens." Also note that we're discussing the iPhone, which has a typical cell phone lens, and is not going to be putting one of those monsters on.
I can see why you posted as an AC. Your post really sounds like you're trying to justify your purchase. Well, to make you feel better, that thing might actually justify a 4-5 MP sensor, far above what a typical cell camera does, and better than most point and shoots. If you take a picture of a standard test chart under standard conditions and post it, we can tell you.
Next time take a more careful read through the post you're replying to, try to understand the actual issue at hand, and remember to keep your temper under control.