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Apple Announces Event on October 4th: Let's Talk iPhone
- thehodge 15y agoOkay, Now I'm ready to admit that it's October 4th..
- rahoulb 15y agoactually today is the 28th
- caiusdurling 15y agoWonder what they're going to announce in the iPhone 5. Better battery life and perhaps a better GPS is all I really want over my iPhone 4.
- weaksauce 15y agoImproved camera would be nice.
- blinkingled 15y agoInteresting. I have heard from so many friends that current iPhone camera is about as good as it can get. Curious what you are expecting more - just bumped up mega pixels? Not sure how much that would matter - going from 5MP to 8MP for e.g.
- kokey 15y agoThe resolution is adequate for most uses, but any improvements for lower light conditions will always be well received.
- runjake 15y ago8mp, 1080p, etc. The Android world (the HTC Sensation being the first to pop into mind) has finally surpassed the iPhone 4 in camera and video capture quality. I imagine Apple will leapfrog them again as usual for a healthy competitive market.
- r00fus 15y agoMegapixels != quality. Lens and sensor are far more important. Can you show me a review that honestly shows new Androids beating an iPhone4 in actual results despite the megapixels?
- runjake 15y agoI didn't indicate anywhere that megapixels == quality. When you just about max out the quality of a given MP value with given hardware constraints, as I think the iPhone 4 has done, the only real way to go up is increasing MP. I can't be bothered to dig up some review for you, as my observations come from personal experience. Your best bet is to look for HTC Sensation reviews with unmodified example shots and videos.
- wanorris 15y agoThere was a photo posted online from within Apple that someone analyzed, and there was circumstantial evidence to suggest that it was from a new iPhone. There was a spec bump to 8MP, but the extra resolution didn't really add additional detail (which is common for 8MP phone camera sensors). I guess we'll see next week whether that was the real device or not.
- protomyth 15y agoIf you look at some of stuff at SIGGRAPH in computational photography, you could add a couple of more 5mp sensors and create some truly amazing images given the iPhone's programability. A 4 sensor iPhone (5mp or the newer 8mp) would be amazing.
- Someone 15y agoI agree, but I do not see how one would fit them on an iPhone, and leave room (for both left- and right-handed users) to hold the thing.
- protomyth 15y agoJust put them right next to each other in a 2 x 2. The amount of room is pretty small. They should also improve the camera API to allow full use like the FCam API. ref: http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/fcam/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/fcam/
- Someone 15y agoNice. I was thinking of 3D stuff, though. That could be sort-of done in software (let user move the camera, estimate motion from images & sensors, compensate images for motion artifacts), but having two or four cameras at corners of the device would be easier, allow for photographing moving objects, etc. (pan iPhone is about as tall as human eye-eye distance, so this should enable non-macro 3D stuff. I do not think we will stuff like that before we have 3D screens on our iPhones, though.
- protomyth 15y agoYou can do some pretty amazing stuff to get much better pictures with multiple cameras. The stuff they did with the Nokia phone with 1 camera is pretty impressive, but having multiple can really do wonders. The other advantage to multiple cameras is the ability to have less dense sensors allowing more light. I am not a big fan of 3D currently. I just don't see it as good for small devices and it is hard on the eyes. I really think that the other uses for computational photography would make for a killer feature on a main stream phone.
- weaksauce 15y agoBetter lens; more light in == better pictures(broad generalization). A teardrop shaped phone would allow it to have a larger longer lens up top but still feel relatively light and thin. I haven't done research on the iPhone 4's current ccd chip but there is always room for improvement on things. Not necessarily an increase in specs but an increase in response time, decrease in noise levels, larger ccd, etc....
- the_mat 15y agoIn what way? It's already on par with most point and shoot cameras and better than many. Resolution is well beyond useful levels for a phone; I'm surprised Apple is chasing higher megapixel numbers when 99% of iPhone photos get cut-down for web use anyway.
- chetan51 15y agoIt's probably cheap to do so, and helps with the specs race.
- thematt 15y agoI don't expect it to be announced here, but a full touchscreen would be nice... one without a physical button.
- achompas 15y agoI hear this a lot. Why do you want a full touchscreen? I disagree only b/c this creates accessibility problems for some users.
- roc 15y ago> "I disagree only b/c this creates accessibility problems for some users." Capacitive buttons create accessibility and usability problems for all users. They look great in demos and quick previews. They're crap for use.
- achompas 15y agoRight, totally agreed. But are we talking about a capacitive button or a no-button, touchscreen-only front?
- roc 15y agoI'd imagine capacitive buttons. iOS doesn't work without a home button. And as for the obtuse undiscoverable gesture concepts that go along with the no-button ideas: Apple has to be the last company that I would expect to ship a phone that cannot be taken from any state to making a phone call while held in a single hand.
- igorgue 15y agoOh man, how many times I hit "back" when I meant "menu" on my android phone.
- kokey 15y agoApple is helping with long fingernails, I'm hoping the iPhone 5 will have something that discourages high heels.
- Nemisis7654 15y agoI'm pretty sure they're going dual-core processor as well (like the iPad 2).
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- pivo 15y agoI'm hoping for a more durable case. If Apple's design skills are so great then why is the phone so fragile? I'd prefer an esthetically pleasing phone that I didn't have to wrap in a rubber case that obscures my nice looking phone and makes the phone larger in my pocket.
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- thehodge 15y agoWonder if the 1 notification on the phone is a hint that they are only announcing one phone not two as rumoured..
- technoslut 15y agoIt's probably an indication of the announcement. I wouldn't read much more into it.
- gto16108 15y agoI really can't wait to see how Tim Cook brings the new iPhone to the market. There's a lot of pressure on him to perform in the same way that Steve Jobs has in the past. He has, to his advantage, been more chatty with Apple employees via corporate webmail so I'm excited to see what he says and how he brings his team around a much awaited iOS 5 and iPhone.
- guywithabike 15y agoNo need to wait. Tim Cook has already hosted some events, like the Back to the Mac event. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxWSIDoE8Hk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxWSIDoE8Hk (I can't find better videos at the moment, but they're around.)
- gto16108 15y agoAhh yes. I must give Tim credit. He is a very good speaker, that's for certain.
- cryptoz 15y agoSo many puns. "Let's talk iPhone" -> "Let's talk, iPhone" (new speech functionality). It's a phone, you talk to people, you also talk to it, etc. I would expect this to be a very speech technology-heavy event.
- dave1619 15y agoNice catch. Can't wait for Assistant.
- mortenjorck 15y agoTim Cook's first product reveal, and the marquee feature is based around voice recognition. Heaven help him.
- wanorris 15y agoIf anyone can convince the mass market that they care about a voice interface, it's Apple. But there are some things not even Apple can do, and I suspect this may be one of them.
- MatthewPhillips 15y agoThe mass market already cares about voice-to-text, it's heavily used by Android users (according to the Google-provided data).
- andrewljohnson 15y agoTrue fact. Voice search on Android works flawlessly and I use it all the time in the car.
- tadfisher 15y agoExcept for the 30-something-item-long "Did you mean" list that forces me to look at and physically manipulate the phone, it works amazingly well.
- timanglade 15y agoSeriously, look at the design of the invite. Calendar says Tuesday (October) 4th. Clock says 10am. Map app says this will take place at 1 Infinite Loop. And the Phone icon makes it clear this will be an iPhone event (rather than an iPod Touch / iOS event), with one unread notification alerting you that there is something you must pay attention to. They say everything in 4 icons. So awesome.
- achompas 15y agoTo be fair, the GMaps icon always displays 1 Infinite Loop. Still, great catch.
- smackfu 15y agoAnd the clock icon never shows the correct time. It seems like the calendar app is a hack to get it to work right.
- cryptoz 15y agoI used to own an iPhone 3G and was pretty mad that the calendar icon changed day to day but the weather icon always showed 23 degrees C, sunny. So very frustrating, especially in winter when it's -35 and windy. I now run Android and have Beautiful Widgets showing me the correct weather. :)
- shinratdr 15y agoOne is always predictable and one requires you to check for new information before you display it. The concern was definitely battery life & update frequency, so they just left it as a static icon. The weather widget in iOS 5 is a better compromise, it just quickly grabs the weather info when you start pulling down the notification drawer.
- mitchty 15y agoYour anecdote reminds me of when I think iOS4 or thereabout came out. A friend was going nuts going OMG OMG THE WEATHER APP UPDATES LIVE NOW. It turns out it just happened to be 73 or whatever degrees out at the time after he updated. For these small things like weather updates I agree that apple needs to allow developers to update the app icon or whatever with some alert system on the home screen. It wouldn't be overly difficult to implement.
- notatoad 15y agowow, that's just evil. TELUS (phone company here) has been running ads in really heavy rotation pushing the tagline "there's never been a better time to buy an iphone 4", and stating "offer ends october 4th".
- moe 15y agoSame here (different country, different phone companies). Everyone is obviously pushing hard to sell their iphone4-stock now, before Joe Sixpack gets told by the news-anchor to delay his purchase for the iphone5.
- notatoad 15y agoi get that they want to push it and get rid of their stock, that's just good business. what i don't like is that they specifically go out of their way to lie about it. they don't have to mention the time, they could just be pushing features or style. there's plenty of other ways to sell iphones.
- biot 15y agoIt's not lying though. It is true that "There's [there has] never been a better time to buy an iPhone 4". It's not saying "There will never be a better time..." which would be indefensible. It may not be the best time to buy an iPhone given that a version greater than 4 will be released, but if you specifically want version 4, then now is a good a time as any time in the past.
- simonsarris 15y agoIs the iPhone 4 still the same price that it was when it came out? This reminds me of April 2010 when I wrote a couple articles about how Apple is fairly unique among computer manufacturers for charging enormous prices for old hardware and going so long without update or a price drop. In April 2010, depending on the week, you bought a Macbook Pro that was miserably outdated or a Macbook Pro that was very modern for precisely the same price. (If you're interested: http://simonsarris.com/blog/22-mac-envy-2 http://simonsarris.com/blog/22-mac-envy-2 )
- Wazzup12 15y agoWhat could the badge on the phone icon indicate? That's the biggest puzzle...
- wmeredith 15y agoIn the context of the actual iOS, it indicates one missed call. (Which is pretty sly considering they're announcing the phone everyone was expecting in June)
- sjwright 15y agoYou missed a call.
- cpr 15y agoGruber says it means 1 iPhone model only.
- beerglass 15y agoMayb be a reference to the one iPhone 5 model reported to have lost in a bar ;)
- Wazzup12 15y agoOkay, my take is that it means 1 common iPhone for CDMA and GSM
- john2x 15y agoNot 9:42 AM?
- timjahn 15y agoNext time somebody asks you why you prefer Apple products to competitors, show them this invite. Explains everything. So beautiful.
- untog 15y agoThen they might justifiably reply "So, you don't care about the product at all, and just care about the way the company presents itself?"
- gmac 15y agoRight, because the products Apple makes don't need designing... ?
- timjahn 15y agoI'll never understand why people pay so much money for jeans with holes in them, when you could simply just rip the holes yourselves. But I won't hesitate to pay a bit more for a quality Apple product. Some things just don't make sense. :)
- raganwald 15y agoIt’s a reasonable question, however consider the following: If someone is late for a job interview and unkempt, do you question whether they will be on time for work and will have meticulous software development hygiene (by whatever standards you employ, e.g. tests, proper use of source control)? It’s true that some unkempt people are very careful about their work, and some people who are late for an interview are on time for work. So I would personally probe further to make sure this is not a sign of a deeper lack of commitment. Careful attention to detail in marketing materials doesn’t automatically mean careful attention to detail in product development. But you know, I doubt it’s a coïncidence that Apple's marketing materials are clean and simple, and they don’t play the “Intel Inside” sticker game, and they are restrained in the CrapWare they allow on their OS X machines, and so on and so forth. So if you show me a busy, confused marketing item, I won’t automatically refuse to buy the product. But I will certainly probe to see if this is an anomaly or whther it is representative of their approach to product development.
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- heynk 15y agoMight be too much speculation, but the first thing I thought when I saw the maps icon was a hint that they'd reveal their own non-google maps system.
- r00fus 15y agoThat would indeed be huge, but I'd be a bit worried, as Google Maps has been the market leader for some time. More likely, they've made improvements that distinguish the iPhone in an Apple-esque way, and probably increased the likelyhood that iOS maps could be switched to say, Bing in a more direct fashion.
- loire280 15y agoI wonder how many iPhone users realize that the Maps app on their phone is powered by Google maps?
- shinratdr 15y agoPretty unlikely, we probably would have seen some slip-ups in the iOS 5 beta if that was the case. As it stands they are still steadily improving the existing Maps with Google services, adding alternate routes and whatnot.
- watmough 15y agoSadly, Apple do not yet have their own orbital launch capability... though maybe it's not so far fetched looking at the characters that do!
- nizm 15y agoMaybe Apple is trying to promote 4ormat http://4ormat.com http://4ormat.com with the "4"
- sneak 15y agoI just got excited, then deeply sad when I remembered that this is going to be without Steve. Best of luck to Mr. Cook, but I will always miss Stevenotes no matter how great a CEO he turns out to be.
- culturestate 15y agoI wonder if Steve'll be in the audience?
- athoma 15y agoNo Steve Jobs :(
- drivebyacct2 15y agoWow. We're debating the presence of "one notification" to be a response to extremely speculative rumors of a "cloud iPhone" (in the day of poor batteries and data-caps?) Or that Assistant, even in this thread, is being touted as revolutionary? Or that people seem to attribute webOS with Android-style notifications despite being later to the game? The iPhone 4 is gorgeous and iOS is in a class of it's own, but I can not understand the blinders that come on around announcement time.
- revscat 15y agoYour entire message is a strawman; there is nothing in this thread which supports your claims.
- drivebyacct2 15y agoThere are 3 comments in here speculating that the '1' is specifically about one model of an iPhone. There are at least 2 comments praising the magicalness of Assistant. The notifications misconception is one that is popular around here and even amongst the "geekier" people I know. I knew it wouldn't be a popular opinion, but my comments are not a terribly unfair depiction of the reaction to iOS announcements on HN.
- sidcool 15y agoTwo words, Cloud iPhone...
- baddox 15y agoThe article is still speculating about the "iPhone 5" part, right? Last I checked, we still don't know if it will be a hardware upgrade (perhaps "4S"), a low-cost version, a world phone, a complete form factor upgrade ("5"), or some combination of these and other things.
- egiva 15y agoNobody thinks that having four icons indicates that they finally made the smaller iPod Shuffle-based iPhone? There was speculation last year that they were looking at a smaller lower-priced entry iPhone with limited features based on the Shuffle. I would wear it running, so I'm hoping the four-icon picture isn't just a coincidence.
- ctdonath 15y ago[Insert Stimpy "JOY!" here] That would, indeed, be awesome. I take the iPad almost everywhere, so I have no need for an iPhone which is little more than an iPad Nano. Thing is, I need that "little more" - the phone part - as well, and want it as a separate device which I _can_ have everywhere. It's back to the "just a phone" desire, a device focused on making phone calls with Apple design sensibilities. Take an iPod Nano, insert a bigger battery & cellular chip, support Bluetooth headsets, sell millions. Methinks coincidence though. Four icons is just enough to get the invite info across in a cute way, and there just isn't another suitable way to arrange them (a 4x1 line? not for advertising).
- prawn 15y agoWould that kill existing apps for iPhone and force them to be redesigned? That's the reason I don't think that they will change the screen shape.
- philwelch 15y agoI don't know why everyone's assuming Tim Cook will actually deliver the keynote when execs like Schiller and Forstall have been doing the keynotes with Steve and Tim Cook never has.
- espressodude 15y agoCan't wait to see that new iPhone also if Tim Cook could match the level of how Steve Jobs presents Apple products on his keynotes.