RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Games and Tech iphone 4 revealed (officially this time)

full specs and run-down:
http://gizmodo.com/5557101/iphone-4-the-definitive-guide

quick details:

- 4.5" x 2.31", 0.37" thick
- 34% thinner than the iPhone 3GS
- weighs 4.8 ounces (137 grams) slightly heavier than the 3GS
- stainless steel rim acts as an antenna to increase 3G and Wi-Fi reception
- Apple A4 chip inside, just like the iPad
- battery has 40% more power (7hs talk, 40hrs music, 300hrs standby)
- Retina Display: 960 × 640 resolution (4x the 3GS)
- 5MP camera, high ISO, with LED flash
- camera in front and back for video conferencing via FaceTime
- includes iOS4, featuring app multitasking

available on June 24
$199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB

Not much we didn't already know though I am psyched that the iPhone is getting the Netflix app soon. That was some good news!

How about a "Verizon" app? This thing could kill telemarketers instantly, and you still wouldn't get me to use AT&T...

I couldn't use ATT if I wanted there are 20-30 mile stretches of highway around where I live where I can't get an ATT signal. That's why I switched to Verizon in the first place.

The AT&T exclusive contract ends in 2012. Since is hasn't happened yet I doubt it will change before then.

How do you know this, basement warrior? Where is your proof? Begone from my camp until you can PROVE these claims, and marry my daughter. Now! Go upon your quest and prove your claims! Otherwise...I SHUN YOU!

Claims!

I think its time to cut back on the pot smoking.

You always think that, and you're always wrong...

Good news: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/iphone_provider_on_the_verizon_9UkZWDhwA1cfbHopgADBIO

Bad news: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/dropped_calls_apple_boss_tells_irate_QEU6v6tltoI3piBgijrSZN

Unhappy iPhone 4 users file lawsuits:

• Kevin McCaffrey of Nottingham and Linda Wrinn of Baltimore filed a putative class action against Apple Inc. and AT&T Inc. on Wednesday evening in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, alleging the new phones are defective.
  
  “This is endemic to this telephone and this is something directly related to the way Apple has chosen to design it,” said Daniel S. Ward, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. “Apple knew that it had design flaws … and chose to market, sell and reap tremendous rewards.”
  
  Apple has hyped the iPhone 4’s wrap-around antenna, but many users have reported decreased reception when their fingers touch it. Apple Chairman Steve Jobs allegedly suggested users “just avoid holding it in that way.”

the new iphone is a phenomenal device. the new apps are awesome, the screen is awesome, etc. the phone (for current at&t users) is shit. well, it's not shit shit, the voice quality is actually pretty awesome. but the phone reception or range or signal or lack-of-auto-hangup is poo, and certainly not up par with, say, verizon. whether or not the new phone has dead spots, to me, seems irrelevant - or at least unnoticeable. not because the problem isn't bad, but moreso because how do you spot a problem within a pile of other problems?

When you buy a phone, that should be the bit that works the best, and the apps should come secondary.

While I am all for devices and gadgets that do everything, there is always a primary function, and that function should be the thing it does best.
A PS3 does internet, blu ray, DVD and lots of other stuff, but if the computer gaming was where it fell down, that would make it be pointless.

This was also a problem with the first iPhone, that the phone function was its weakest feature.
TBH, getting the phone part right should be the easiest part seeing as mobile phones have been round long enough now to let people know what will and wont make a phone fully functional.

Its easy to blame it on the carrier, but these problems are not limited to the USA.

an obvious truth, but im not certain any iphone fans (and purchasers) are looking at the device as a phone-first item. i'd suspect the "primary" use for those that get it is communications: texting, web, email, IM, twitter, facebook, video conferencing, etc. games and other apps second. actually conversing via traditional phone methods is a distant third - and I don't think that's limited to iphones, either. blackberries made famous the non-phone phone for years, and was even more awkward physically (and more tellingly not a phone-first device) with the jarring keyboards. iphones just added in the "lookit me!" screen for games and apps and other fun aspects that have blown up the phenomena.

that said, would it be lovely if the phone worked, as well? sure, that'd be right kind of them. at&t bears the largest burden, as their network is shit (a note shared by at&t customers with other devices) but im certain apple takes a good portion of the blame.

i do use the phone for phone-ing, and the device, itself, works very well. great voice quality, n'all. it's just a matter of reception. works great in my apartment, but my parents can't get a signal in their house 45 minutes away. works great in most nyc locations, but there are spots downtown that register nothing.

however, that impacts me more in a "i can't get my email" fashion than a "i can't take this call" fashion.

I dont get your point.
Whether its as a traditional phone or for texting or internet, a phone is still primarily a communications device, if there is no signal, you are fucked.
What good is having a Facebook app or an app that lets you watch porn on the internet, if your phone cannot pick up a signal?

As I said, blaming AT&T isnt good enough as its the same on other networks around the world. There is nothing to suggest that the problem would not be similar on Verizon at this moment in time. The simple fact is that the antenna on the phone is not good enough, and that the phone gives false displays of how good the reception is in any area.

As for the Blackberry. I have no love for them either, but I dont see what the keyboard has to do with the phone functioning. I cant ever remember hearing too many stories of Blackberries having reception issues.

What we all need to realize is that Apple products make stupid people even stupider.

That should be their advertising slogan.

for a phone conversation, you need a steady, fixed signal. if that starts to vary, you either get shit reception or you lose the call all together. for the usage of email, texts, IMs, facebook posts, etc, you only need a signal at the moment of sending or receiving. it doesn't have to be steady, or even good. it can be a burst, it can be random, it can be weak - they all get the job done.



i can only speak for the regions here. and, here, at&t has poor signal quality whether you're on an iphone or an old motorola razr. one does not perform better than the other, they're both similarly poor. devices that are available on multiple carriers (for example, the razr) have better performance in this area on non-at&t carriers. i'd assume the same would be true of the iphone.

perhaps the iphone is marginally worse as a device than the razr or other phones in terms of picking up a signal. but like i said above, that would be an unnoticeable problem, as it's buried under the general terribleness of at&t service.



not that the keyboard impacted the actual phone quality (i have no idea that it did) but that the keyboard, and the awkward form the keyboard gave the phone, made the obvious statement that it was not a phone-first device.

Phones are often the cause of poor signals, not the carrier.
For instance, I have worked places where people complain of being able to get no signal, yet my phone can get a fairly decent signal, even if its not the best it could be. Some of these people are on different networks, some are on the same.
The big difference is the phone itself, and the ability to recieve better signals.
Yes the carriers struggle to get a decent signal to the area, but almost anyone with a Nokia in that area benefited from the design of the phone.

Yes, there are areas where one carrier is worse than another, but that is not the problem with the iPhone itself, the antenna is shit, pure and simple.

As for the Blackberry "Not being a phone first" because of the keyboard doesnt quite make sense in that the keyboard is an extra feature.
It still has number keys and still has a make call and an end call button.
Phones change over the years, just as your computer or console changes.
Years ago we all played games with joysticks, then joypads, and now the Wii has wands, does that mean its not a console first because something changed?
If the Blackberry had stripped out the numbers and the send and end buttons, then you might have a point, but the keyboard itself is just an extra feature, just like some computers have numeric keypads on their keyboards and some dont.
The primary function is still there.
If anything the Blackberry was most certainly designed as a phone first, because its primary initial customer base was the business community that needed to contactable at all times.

I have a Nokia E71, which uses the same keyboard layout as a Blackberry, and it took a little getting used to the keyboard for texting, but had absolutely no effect or change to the way I made phone calls. The keyboard just ended up making the other functions easier to use (thats whats called progress).

sure. and, like i said, maybe the iphone could be worse at catching the shitty at&t signal than other phones. if the verizon rumor rings true, and iphone uses their platform, we'll be able to see who the main culprit was. i think safe money is on the carrier.



then why have a blackberry at all, considering they (many models) were very awkwardly designed in order to incorporate the keyboard? they made for terribly inconvenient cell phones, both in storing and holding. newer models have addressed that, but it was the originals that got people hooked on the keyboard in the first place, introducing the ease of accessing emails 24/7. in fact, many companies offered their employees blackberries in addition to their cell phones: one for email, one for calls. the keyboard, at least here, didn't become "an additional feature", it became the main feature. being able to also use the portable email device as a phone was secondary.

iphones, and i think most smart phones after the blackberry, have really just utilized that model.

Oh, and another way to look at it is that its called an iPhone, not an iPod or iTouch or iThingthatsendstextsandhasniceappsbutyoucantmakephonecalls, so to then say its not a phone first, is very misleading then isnt it?

brilliant.

and, in that line of thinking, the blackberry's main function would be... eating? racism?

Because the other things were extras.
See how it works?
Why bother having wands on a Wii when PS3 shows you can have movement control in a traditional joypad? Because its suits the type of console better.
Does that mean that the Wii isnt a console first, because it does things differently to what is considered the norm?

Smart phones started out with traditional phone keypads, but then Blackberry realised that all the extra add on functions that were being put on phones these days, such as internet and office utilities, were better served by adding a QWERTY keyboard.
The keyboard serves a function, but the old school phone pad is still there.

Thats a pretty moronic statement there Rob.
If I buy a car its got a name, whether that be Pontiac Firebird or Ford Focus, its the products name. When you buy those, you are buying a car.
Now, if Pontiac, Ford or Lincoln brought out somthing called a car, but it couldnt actually be driven, then you would be within your rights to question why it specifically states it is a car when its not.


My line of thinking is that Apple have gone out of their way to brand the product as a phone, when its not very good at being a phone.
If Blackberry made something that was very bad at being a phone, they could be justified as saying that nowhere in its name does it suggest its primary function is being a phone.

i never said the blackberry stopped being a phone, or that the company stopped looking into phone tech. the company just clearly jumped on the (incredibly smart and lucrative) notion that individuals wanted other aspects in their device more than they wanted a phone. namely email. hence, they turned the entire front of the device into a typewriter keyboard! later, that worked its way to better texting, browsing the web, updating facebook status, etc. apple, google, and others ran with this notion by pushing games, apps, and all sorts of other fun gadgets into the devices. they'd only do that if that is where the money and focus is.



halo guesses nowie's password?



"phone", or more aptly "smartphone", is simply the category name. apple just went with "iphone" cuz it was cute and catchy and an easy way to bring the popular i-naming sequence into the cellular market. all these portable gizmos are just known as such. that's how they're classified, that's how they began. i just think you're reading too much into the naming structure. an ipod isn't a "pod", and an "ipad" would have more accurately been named an "itablet".

i mean, fuck, this whole discussion stemmed from everyone's agreement that the iphone's phone is shit. do you not think that most iphone users acknowledge that? new model issues aside, the iphone is like 3 years old - the "poo phone" story has been told. yet it still sells hundreds of thousands every release date. why? because smart phones aren't being used primarily as phones! blackberry was genius in their positioning, and so many more companies have followed suit. they're likely not even primarily email machines or texting machines at this point anymore - that has probably given way to facebook/twitter "status machines". or, perhaps more accurately "app machines".

Rob guesses Robs password.
Only Rob could post comments as gay as the ones he just did.

the insurgency is baaaaaaack!!!!

Rob, with all due respect, your defense of the iPhone is a little like someone saying they bought a car that doesn't run because it had nice upholstery, built-in GPS and a kick ass sound system.

silly old man. we already learned earlier that if your buy a car its got a name. pay attention!

Yes, Rob, I understand that you and Nowie were discussing a car analogy.

The problem for your argument is that, names aside, you're advocating that people buy a product that allegedly doesn't accomplish its basic function simply because you like other, peripheral, functions (some of which actually need the basic function to work).

oy.

im not advocating anything. there are like 5 separate discussions over the past few pages, so i'm not sure which one you'd like to be a part of. i'll summarize my points, and you can pick which ones you'd like to disagree with:

1) at&t is shit service
2) iphones have always had shit service, not just the new one
3) i suspect iphones have shit service because of at&t
4) blackberry's standardized the modern notion of "smartphone"
5) said notion is typically associated with devices where "phone calls" are not the primary use

which one would you like?

I just farted.

It smells like eggs.

I should open a window.

you've got the egg burp somethin terrible

(what up with that)

fucking magnets

who do, you do, say what, voo doo!