Daring Fireball: iPhone 4 Impressions and Observations | Hacker News Reader

Daring Fireball: iPhone 4 Impressions and Observations

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Apple appears to have really focused on hardware innovation for iPhone 4:

steel alloy antenna acting as frame

custom A4 chip

gyroscope

camera backslide illumination sensor

engineered glass and retina display

This seems like the biggest hardware upgrade to the iPhone to date. I think people will respond by making it a record-selling iPhone.

I highly doubt that Apple is now pioneering new innovations in the realm of metallurgy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materials_science

Do you really think a company like Apple doesn't have any materials engineers? I don't know what the ratio is of the materials they develop in-house compared to the rights they buy from smaller research companies or institutions, but materials science is definitely a field Apple knows a lot about.

For the confused, the above comment appears to be a reply to this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1412551

I think you're forgetting that iOS 4 has a metric ton of additions that were announced at another keynote.

Edit: not that I disagree with you, but it should be noted that the focus of this keynote was hardware in part because the software had already been announced

I totally agree. Lots of software additions in iOS 4. I just noticed how many hardware innovations were announced in the keynote today.

I mentioned this in the other thread, but hardware (and industrial design) is where Apple has greater expertise (and competitive advantage) over the competition. They are widening their moat.

Most of these hardware innovations translate directly to new/enhanced user experiences. And competitors like Google don't build phones - they build software. They are limited to what phone manufacturers (experts in phones - not software) can develop technologically.

This is not to say Android won't have greater market share - I just believe Apple realizes Google as a threat, and now heading in a direction that will be tricky for them to follow.

I think your right on the money there. Tha appeal of Aplle to Le has always been the integration of hardware and software and there's just no one else doing it at the same level. They don't get an unconditional pass from me when the screw up (mice!?) but they really seem to be playing to their competitive advantage with the new iPhone. The hardware is just bar none it seems. (not talking about spec sheets) Or they can certainly sell it as such.

They did a great job hitting the big outstanding issues with the iPhone and pulling ahead in some key areas. When you combine the hardware refresh with all the new iOS4 features it really is a gigantic upgrade. It puts the last 12 months of Android/iPhone competition into better perspective. 3 months ago I would have said Google was outpacing Apple on hardware & software but I'm not sure now. What do you guys think?

It's irrelevant. Saying the iPhone has been losing marketshare to Android due to any hardware specs is like saying Coca Cola was losing marketshare to Pepsi in the 80's due to Pepsi tasting better. It seems logical, but it's just not the problem. That's why New Coke was a disaster, and it's why Android will outsell iOS soon (if it's not already).

Android is gaining because of carriers. What Apple really needed to announce (and why their share price dropped when they did not) was launching on Verizon.

I'm not sure why you are getting down voted. Your explanation is logical and the lack of iPhone carriers is a big issue for marketshare. Up voted.

You're stealing my analogy. But I believe Bing is Pepsi and Google is New Coke. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1400311

It looks like Apple takes 20% market share by size and 80% by revenue. Android takes 80% market share by size and 20% by revenue. The carriers are giving away Android phones to price sensitive customers.

That looks like Apple's strategy with respect to iAds, too. It looks like iAds will be focused on large, mainstream consumer brands and AdMob will be focused on affiliate links for boner pills.

Big advertisers don't want to advertise to price sensitive customers and App developers can't sell to them.

Completely agreed. There is too much value placed on market share. To a business what should be more important? Market share or profit?

It's pretty obvious to me.

What revenue is it that apple is getting 80% of to android's 20%?

Hardware? Manufacturers still get $hundreds per phone even when they are "free."

Software? If Android gets 80% of the market by size (they don't, and won't soon, but might in five years) then that 30% of app revenue will add up.

That was the whole point of the keynote today. Google is trying to lure developers by being free and open. Apple is try to lure developers with cold, hard cash that they are paying out.

The keynote mentioned that Apple has paid out $1 billion to developers through the App Store and advertisers have committed to $60 million dollars so far to iAds. Developers get 60% of this.

I see or hear no numbers from Google. Google hasn't even rolled out Google Checkout worldwide, yet. The Android devices that Google is selling are being given away by the carriers. A customer that received a free device and has not input their credit card into a payment processor is probably not the type of customer that I want.

I don't know what Android devices you're talking about. Most of the ones I see when I walk into the Sprint store cost the same as an iPhone.

The bulk of the manufacturer's revenue comes from the contract premium anyway which the buyer does not see. Even a "free" Android handset might net the manufacturer $400.

Agreed. Apple needs to get on other carriers to reach more people and keep momentum.

Note that in the UK, iPhone 4 will be simultaneously available for three carriers: O2, Orange, and Vodafone.

Does anyone have any insights as to how AT&T is maintaining its iPhone exclusivity in the US? It's obviously great for AT&T, but seems to be very bad for Apple.

Does anyone have any insights as to how AT&T is maintaining its iPhone exclusivity in the US? It's obviously great for AT&T, but seems to be very bad for Apple.

Yes: Apple signed a contract that gave them exclusivity until 2012. I'm guessing AT&T lawyers did a good job wording that clause.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/10/confirmed-apple-and-atand...

I had always thought it was a 3-year deal expiring in 2010. I didn't see this news when it broke last month. So, no great mystery here.

Well, the UK situation involves three GSM carriers. In the United States, the only prominent GSM competitor to AT&T is T-Mobile, and they have no need or intention to get their phone on a budget carrier. With Verizon, they'd have to design different hardware and deal with the fact that EV-DO Rev. A on CDMA is on the way out and LTE is going to be lit up for about 100M subscribers by January 2011.

So in other words, everyone in the world will be using the iPhone with their favorite carrier, and thus competes equally with Android, except for people in the States who will be stuck with AT&T for a few more years.

Bad for Apple how? AT&T is paying quite a bit for this privilege. As high as $18 / mo / iPhone according to http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9803657-37.html

Right now I think Apple cares more about the image AT&T is giving the iPhone than the money their paying for the privilege. The iPhone is not just for 5 Christmas's...

With both AT&T and Verizon rolling out LTE networks over the next year, it makes little sense creating a CDMA version of the iPhone only to have an LTE iPhone replace both GSM and CDMA iPhones. I think its more likely that the next iPhone could be on Verizon first, then AT&T since Verizon is rolling out their LTE network faster than AT&T.

Apple has benefited far more than AT&T... look at the stock prices or revenues gained. I'm not saying they're benefitting specifically from exclusivity... they would make more with more carriers to be sure... but the notion that it's "bad for Apple" doesn't seem to float.

I'm mostly interested in it from a technical / end user perspective. I don't own stock in Apple or Google so I really don't care that much about market share. I think it's interesting to see which software/hardware issues they're focusing on and how much progress is being made.

The carrier straight jacket is the big one. I know plenty of people that won't switch from Verizon or Sprint because ATT's network is horrible or nonexistent for them. Allowing ATT to have a 1/2 decade grip may be the biggest mistake of all.

Except Apple probably didn't have a great deal of choice at the time. Remember, at the time, the best thing people had to compare the iPhone with was the Newton (and many of those comparisons were made).

AT&T was either extremely smart or extremely lucky for making the deal they did. I'm sure Apple gave up way more than they wanted to just to get the phone out the door.

Fair, but I remember one of the major sticking points was how much the carriers were willing to subsidize the cost of the phone at launch. Verizon wasn't willing to give as much as att on their contracts. There was certainly give/take, but the generosity of the lock-in is starting to be stretched. At least there are other markets that are less restricted to allow growth outside the US market.

What is so special about Verizon other than its practice of charging 200% of what other carriers charge? I would have much preferred an announcement about T-Mobile support.

I have owned both.

In my last 2 residences, I had no problem with Verizon, and big problems with AT&T. In both locations, missed and dropped calls on the AT&T network were common. Additionally, I never see the 3G icon displaying on my iPhone in my home, and this morning I could not email 4 pics from my iPhone to my wife. They are still sitting in my out box.

I had a dropped call with a client earlier today. With Verizon, I rarely had any issues. I would pay 2x to have this phone be usable to me.

Verizon's plans and charges are almost dollar for dollar the exact same as AT&T, their global web/email services are actually a bit cheaper. Apple would have no interest in partnering with T-Mobile, heck, their service is worse and spottier than AT&T.

" Apple would have no interest in partnering with T-Mobile, heck, their service is worse and spottier than AT&T."

I've had the opposite experience. And T-mob customer support is far nicer.

In Raleigh, NC I had a lot of issues with T-mobile. The problem would be magnified any time I entered a building, on a variety of phones. Having switched to Verizon, I've only found two places in the area where I have poor service. (Too bad it's my research lab and my summer job...)

I had AT&T in Phoenix AZ, and then in Manasass VA, and when I moved back to Phoenix I gave T-mobile a shot. They had 21-day trial thing so I got a phone and drove all over the place, especially checking places I knew I would likely be, checking reception and such, and overall the quality beat AT&T.

It may be , though, that what works best depends on the particular region. Still happy with their customer support; they helped me in assorted ways and it was quite pleasant.

I think competition is great. I'm sure we'll soon see an Android phone that does iPhone 4g plus more in 6 months, then we'll see an iPhone 4gs or something, repeat ad nauseum.

The real winners in this kind of arms race are the consumers. Every phone upgrade is really a major upgrade, and the phones don't really cost you anything different.

> They did a great job hitting the big outstanding issues with the iPhone and pulling ahead in some key areas.

The only pain point that they didn't hit hard enough (as hard as they could) was battery life. They improved it, but they also traded away some of the improvement they could have made for thinness. Maybe my data points are biased, but I can't recall hearing anyone complain about how thick the previous model is. Whereas annoyance about remembering charge pretty much every day was something I've heard about lots of smartphones from moderate to heavy users.

Maybe those users are sure enough to upgrade from an iP3 the iP4, so they skipped that point of annoyance in favor of going for the "fits in a smaller purse" factor?

Google remains the default search engine in iOS 4, but on all the demo phones in the hands-on area for the media, the search engine was set to Bing.

An interesting message! I'm guessing the map app is still using Google?

They may have just been showing off the new features since Bing was added in this version.

>After using so much aluminum in recent hardware designs, it’s interesting that they’re using stainless steel for the iPhone 4.

I wonder if this is related to the steel frame serving as the iPhone's antenna. Would steel be a better material than aluminum for this purpose?

It's likely that steel is a better antenna but also it's probably stronger than aluminum. Their videos says they've made a special stainless steel that's even stronger than regular stainless steel. It'll also help for the stronger part of the phone to be the edges in case people drop their phone.

I wonder what the specs on the strength of this 'new stainless steel' are. I highly doubt that Apple is now pioneering new innovations in the realm of metallurgy "just to bring you a better iPhone," though their marketing would probably have you believe otherwise.

"Strength" of a metal is always a tweaked compromise of hardness and toughness. It could be that their steel is formulated specially for the particular structure of the iPhone 4. This wouldn't be a new pioneering branch of metallurgy, though it could be spun like that by marketdroids.

Agreed, drop a little more carbon into the steel and you've got your own new stainless steel that for all intensive purposes is probably identical to 3,000 types of steel already on the market by different producers globally.

Steel is steel, they probably researched the steel that works best as an antenna whilst not compromising the physical strength of the unit (for instance, you don't want the metal case to be the thing most likely to shatter on the device).

> intensive purposes

I love that eggcorn. It's "intents and purposes", btw.

  they've made a special stainless steel that's even stronger...

They've discovered Rearden Metal[1]! The only question now is who will be Dagny Taggart to Job's Hank Rearden.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged#Plot_summary

Does that mean that "Jony" Ive is Galt?

Al has higher conductivity than SS. I'd have to crunch numbers to see if it would make that much difference at cell phone frequencies (power budget). At 60 Hz, ACSR has most of the current in the Al not the steel from the skin effect.

SS has the advantage of strength over Al.

Possibly a SS exterior with Al inside.

edit: I cheated and glanced at the ARRL Handbook (2005) page 20.7 "The strongest wire suitable for antenna service is copperclad steel, also known as copperweld. The copper coating is necessary for RF service because steel is a relatively poor conductor."

Based on that I suspect a better conductor inside the SS or as part of the SS.

Further edit: using google, there are SS Yagi antennas so that is nothing new, not sure about other antenna types at this time. If Apple used SS and made a better antenna (larger?) then it might use less power than a smaller antenna using a better conductor.

last edit: SS whip antennas are also available, such that the material choice probably is not that big of deal as much as the design of the antenna itself.

Forged steel is much harder than anodized aluminum. My 1st gen aluminum phone got beat up and deformed, this should be much better. Also interesting is the incredible strength and toughness of the glass they showed getting deformed in the bend tester. Apple has replaced many of my iPhones, but I bet this one will be hard to break and they will lose a lot less money.

From what I've been reading, the hardware seems rather nice.

Not sure I like the iAds (concept) though especially if the ad data downloaded is counted against the data limit before extra charges occur. Has anyone seen anything on the details for this?

Still thinking Android since I have a choice of vendors.

Most likely all data is counted for with AT&T. But ad data probably is negligible because the whole ad is not downloaded, just the banner. It's only when you click on the ad that the rest of the ad is visible as html 5.

Is this confirmed? I understood (from the OS 4 intro a couple of months ago) that the whole ad was cached on the device, which obviously makes opening it faster.

This is where AT&T jumps into this iAd stuff with some kind of revenue share program where they provide end-users the bandwidth for "free" and they get a cut of the ad revenue.

Say goodbye to net neutrality on mobile phone networks, as if it ever existed.

It also improved the field of view for the display — you can view the display from an oblique angle and it looks great.

This could get annoying in public places, where you don't want people looking at your phone.

I noticed that it was real common in Japan for people to place a protective cover over their mobile's screen that prevents viewing from an angle. With so many people so closely grouped together on trains, it's a necessity.

> With so many people so closely grouped together trying to read porn on trains, it's a necessity.

At least, that was my experience of trains in Tokyo, anyway.

In case anyone is interested, the method used is polarization, and the film is either called a polarisation filter or a polarising filter depending on how it translates in Amurica.

I don't know any decent-looking vendours who sell them, be it for iPhones and other devices, so it might be your chance to get entrepreneurial

I wonder, does the HTC Evo have the same fusion of touchscreen and glass? So no more dust-under-the-glass issue as well or is Apple the poinere here?

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