Dave Caolo

Today’s WWDC announcements were a whirlwind for me, as I was focused on getting the facts up on TUAW as quickly as possible. Here are my initial thoughts on the iPhone 4. More thoughtful posts are forthcoming.

The body

The prototype Gizmodo had was very close to the final product. I still think the band of metal that surrounds the edges, protruding buttons and visible screws are atypical of Apple. But I’m thrilled with Apple’s decision to use glass on the back. I’ve owned two iPhones now, an original model and a 3GS. While the backs got scratched, the unprotected displays remained scratch-free and beautiful.

It’s quite thin at 0.37 inch and I’m curious to see what the flat back panel feels like. That’s the clincher, really. I’ve got to hold one.

Gyroscope

I didn’t expect this. The gyroscope and accelerometer give iPhone 4 six-axis motion sensing. Can you imagine games like Zen Bound with this? I’m eager to see what developers do with it.

Retina Display

I assumed the iPhone’s display would be improved, and boy was it ever. At 960 x 640 — 326 pixels per inch — it’s impressive to say the least. Check this out: Apple actually developed a new pixel for the iPhone 4. One so small — 78 micrometers across — that the human eye can’t distinguish between them. That means that the edges of text will have edges as clearly defined as they do in print. No more anti-aliasing. But it’s not just text; photos, webpages and videos will look just tremendous on this display.

FaceTime

This will be a tremendous hit and iPhone 4′s most talked-about feature. Of course, you need 2 iPhones to make it work. Good job, Apple.

But seriously, the obvious use case is with kids (I’m sure more time will let me come up with more). Mine will be elated to talk to me, their grandparents and their aunties with something small enough that they can carry around. The option to switch between the front and rear camera mid-call, moving from “look at me” to “look at what I’m seeing” was inspired. No one else does this, and it’s going to be absolutely huge.

The new camera

Five megapixels, an LED flash, HD video (720p) and upload-from-where-you-stand convenience make my Flip camera nervous. A real shocker was the announcement of iMovie for iPhone. I simply cannot imagine editing video on something that small, let alone with my fingers in the way, but I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve used it.

With this update, the iPhone maintains its reputation as a lust-worthy gadget. I cannot wait to get my hands on one.

Another Apple event, another leak. This is supposedly the “Magic Trackpad,” a stand-alone input device that’s a combination between a mouse and a multi-touch trackpad. I think I get it.

Try this. Put a thin, hardcover book next to your Mac. Now, consider it a mouse replacement. Slide your finger around, tap to click, pinch and make other multi-touch gestures. We’ll see if I’m right, but I think it could replace mice in certain situations.

We’ll probably find out today.

Matt Warman, the Consumer Technology Editor at Telegraph, has published his 10 reasons not to buy the next generation iPhone. Forget that he’s advising his readers to avoid a product he has not seen or used. Many of his arguments are flat-out wrong to begin with. Here’s an examination of where Warman went astray.

1. It’s anti-technology. Warman argues “…as other manufacturers announce, for instance, that you can use their phones as shareable wifi hot spots, Apple says no.” That’s incorrect. AT&T has announced that iPhone tethering, which allows customers to use it as a Wi-Fi hotspot, will be available with version 4.0 of the iPhone OS.

AT&T’s data plans that include tethering go into effect on Monday.

Warman continues on this point. “When will [Apple] learn that it’s customers – supply and demand – that should dictate feature availability?” If Matt were familiar with Apple he’d realize that its refusal to add features simply because users want them is one of its greatest strengths. You can be sure that Apple’s designers know full well that customers want iPhone tethering, an iPad with a camera and a myriad of other things. Yet they withhold these features until A.) They’ve devised the perfect implementation B.) technology catches up with their vision for the best implementation C.) other limiting factors are dealt with. Pushing a feature to market simply because some of your customers want it, and not because it’s a true benefit, is a mistake every time.

If anything, the tethering delay is probably attributable to AT&T, not Apple.

2. No Flash. “The iPhone, the phone that promised to put the web into everybody’s pockets, can’t even show you most of it, because it can’t handle Flash graphics. Google Android can, in the latest version (OS 2.2), and it’s going to be available free on a lot of budget tariffs.” I can count on 1 hand the number of times I’ve wished my iPhone could run Flash, and I use a lot of data. Here’s a partial list of the growing number of major sites that work beautifully on the iPhone (and iPad) thanks to HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript:

• CNN
• Reuters
• The New York Times
• Vimeo
• YouTube
• Time
• ESPN
• Major League Baseball
• Netflix
• NPR
• National Hockey League
• The White House
• Flickr
• Virgin America
• TED
• CBS
• CNN Money
• MSNBC
• Fox News
• CNET
• The Wall Street Journal
• ABC

As for Flash running on Android OS 2.2, here’s a hands-on review from WIRED:

“I hopped on to the Sony Pictures web site to check out the trailer for Karate Kid, a re-make starring Will Smith’s son Jaden Smith. I could watch the trailers, pinch-to-enlarge it and check out some of the trivia on the site. But Flash stumbled here, forcing me to reload the site about three times when the trailer didn’t pop up on the screen the way it was supposed to … Chanel’s site has a video that shows its Cruise 2010 collection. Five seconds into the video, it failed to play and the spinning circle took over the site, forcing me to close it down.

Flash-based games sites … were accessible to the FroYo phone, in stark contrast to the iPhone (and previous versions of Android). But that’s where the fun ended. Loading the content is a frustratingly long process, and the Club Penguin site seemed to challenge the processing power of the phone, so my penguin on the phone couldn’t do much.”

From Engadget:

“The latest version of Android will, upon updating, guide you to visit a selection of Flash-enabled websites … Ironically, a sizable number of the sites on the list are “mobile optimized,” meaning you won’t be hitting their full desktop versions (which doesn’t quite mesh with the idea of “the full web experience”).”

Sounds great.

3. No multitasking. “Tried instant messaging on an iPhone? Oh yes, you have to open the app to see if you’ve got a message. Genius.” Nope, that’s wrong. With push notifications, you can see the entire body of an incoming text message no matter what other application you happen to be running.

Warman then says, “If Apple announces multitasking next it will be an improvement.” I’ll admit I had to double-check the date of his article when I read this (it was published today), because Apple did announce multitasking 9 weeks ago. But it gets better. In another article that posted to Telegraph today, “10 things we can expect from the new Apple iPhone,” item number 4 is “multitasking.” I guess Matt doesn’t read his own website.

This notion that the iPhone OS is incapable of multitasking is a common misconception. In fact, it’s fully capable of multitasking right now. For example, you can listen to music on the iPod app while checking Twitter. You can download an app from the App Store while browsing the web, and so on.

What Warman means, I believe, is that 3rd-party multitasking is prohibited (for example, you can’t run a Twitter app and Mail at the same time). As I said, that will change in less than a week. In fact, here’s a video of how it works.

4. Its battery life is terrible. I use my iPhone fairly constantly between 7:00 AM and 8:00 PM every day, and usually hit the 20% warning around 8:00 PM. Sure, processor-intensive tasks like listing to audio books for hours on end, watching movies or refreshing Twitter like a madman will take a toll on the battery, but I’ve never been stranded with a dead phone.

5. It’s not very well designed. Warman writes, “Use the iPhone as a phone and it’s not got great reception, nor is it particularly comfortable to use for long periods. It’s a computer that happens to have a phone bolted on – jack of two trades, but master of neither.”

The poor reception is in AT&T’s lap. I can’t say that placing or receiving calls on the iPhone is a pleasure; it often isn’t. But that’s not a fault of the hardware. Comfort is a matter of opinion, so I can’t argue with it. By the same token, Matt can’t carry it as a mark against the iPhone.

As for it being poorly designed, well, that’s just silly.

• On July 18, 2007, Jon Ive received the 2007 National Design Award in the product design category for his work on the iPhone.
• In July 2008, Ive was awarded the MDA Personal Achievement award for the design of the iPhone.

What a piece of junk.

Sigh.

Website iPhone Portugal further ruins the fun of June 7th.

Great coverage and collection of videos.

FT.com:

Google is phasing out the internal use of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows operating system because of security concerns, according to several Google employees…New hires are now given the option of using Apple’s Mac computers or PCs running the Linux operating system.

For perspective: this is from a company whose CEO has no love lost for Steve Jobs, and vice versa. Yet they still encourage employees to use OS X. That’s how little faith they have in Windows security.

Great post from Aaron Mahnke at A Better Freelancer.

“With a simple template in Illustrator, I’ve taken all of my logo projects and created iPad wallpaper-sized images, imported them all into iPhoto, created an album for them and then set iTunes up to sync that album with my iPad. And BOOM – instant gorgeous portfolio.”

Great application.

Apple launches online “Why you’ll love a Mac” campaign. Great information for new users, and similar to their former “Switchers” campaign.