I must admit, I was getting a little tired of my iPhone 3GS as it drops the network connection from time to time, and has cause a few of my audio book downloads to fail; and after getting my iPad and seeing what’s possible with the OS, I was seriously considering a different phone. However, now that Apple has announced the iPhone 4 will be available across the world (US, UK France, Germany and Japan) on the 24th June, and pre-orders can be taken with service providers from the 15th, I must admit I’m now torn. I was drawn to the Nexus 1 after a colleague showed it to me in work, notably the turn-by-turn navigation and the HD screen; it really seemed a cut above the Apple offering. However, now that I’ve seen the reviews on EnGadget of the iPhone 4, seen some screen shots of it in operation and discovered that its architecture is based on the Apple A4 processor just like my precious iPad, the HD screen and 5 Megapixel camera seem like icing on the best birthday cake ever. The operating system, previously called iPhone OS 4 has been re-branded as iOS4 (must admit I did wonder about the conflict with CISCO’s IOS operation system for switches, routers etc., so there may be a lawsuit to get through with that one) and an update for the iPad will be available as soon as the new OS is launched with the iPhone later this month.
I think the design of the new iPhone chassis looks fantastic and aligns it well with the design aesthetics of the lastest MacBooks, but the real differences come in the form of the front and rear cameras (for video calling), the Retina display (960×640 resolution), and HD video. Apple also proclaims over 100 new software improvements over OS3 in iOS4, some of which are as follows:
- Multitasking
- Application folders
- Mail improvements
- iBooks (this is an excellent book reader, and looks fantastic on the iPad)
- 5x digital zoom on the camera
- Tap to focus video so you can choose where to focus when shooting in HD
- Spellchecking
- Wireless keyboard support (so if you have one for your iPad you can use it on your phone)
This truly looks like the update all iPhone users have been waiting for, and I’m now convinced that moving to Android or (hack, spit) a Microsoft platform would be a mistake. Roll on the 24th.
Tony Campbell
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