Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

So what a great week for my internet to not be “available” the week when Apple just about announces all of its goodies for the year. Now I try to keep away from any “leaked” pictures or material, unless from a very reliable source and with the sheer amount of rumour mongering on the iPhone 4, it hasn’t been worth bombarding you with fuzzy images of phones in an American bar’s toilet and such, so now its actually official. Even Steve Jobs made a joke about the leaks, saying “Stop me if you’ve already seen this”

So what’s new you ask? Well the first thing to note is that the iPhone 4 is just 9.3mm thick which makes it 24% thinner than the iPhone 3GS and it’s mainly made of stainless steel not the flimsy plastic that has led my girlfriend to have 3, 3G replacements. Inside will be Apple’s A4 processor which currently runs the iPad and will be available in a 16GB and 32GB, yep no 64GB .

Usual stuff aside what makes this stand out more than the 3GS. The screen has seen a vast improvement. 3.5” of 960x649 improvement. That is a 326dpi density. The sharpest screen currently on any smartphone currently available. Apple has named this the “Retina Display” Not only that the sharpness will be beyond what the human eye can distinguish, at high densities. Also it will run all your older apps with the same clarity, upscaling the images as opposed to the iPad which stretches them.

The next major improvement is the camera. AT LAST A FLASH. Yes that’s right a FLASH! Bumped up to 5MP with a backside illuminated sensor, coupled with an LED flash, the camera can zoom in gigitally up to 5x and can also shoot 30fps 720p video. The movie captre also now has it’s own iMovie dedicated app. There’s also a front facing camera allowing what Apple calls FaceTime, a videocall feature only available over a WiFi connection

Other things you may want to know. Battery life still doesn’t look great. 7 hours 3G talktime, 10 hours WiFi internet browsing or video playback and a 300 hour standby time. There’s also increased accuracy with the motion controls with Apple adding a three-axis gyroscope a la “Wii Remote”. This was demoed by Jobs in a game of Jenga and Apple are hoping game developers will make use of this function to create better more immersive games.

On sale 24th June and pre-orders starting from the 15th, i’ll post some info on the prices as nobody is totally sure what they’ll be as all the major networks are snapping up the iPhone for sale, so as soon as I have them all I’ll put them on.

Now after our iPad officialdom release news t’other day, Apple themselves released the plans for data usage before the mobile carriers had done it themselves. Now I dont’t need to go into great detail about the plans as it’s plain for all to see in the image. What is surprising is how different the prices are and the options you get. Vodafone especially.

After looking at it long and hard, it obviously depends on what kind of usage you think you will use with your iPad. O2 offering more daily usage for your money than Orange but Orange offering more usage in a monthly frame. Vodafone’s tariffs appear to be ludicrous in comparison.

Obviously this is just the prices for the 3G/WiFi models of the iPad which cost more than the just WiFi so also bear in mind you will have to pay for the iPad itself.

As you may have noticed I’ve avoided speaking about the iPad at all! Mainly this was due to the fact I’m not a fan of Apple (which has changed slightly since my recent acquisition of an  iPhone 3GS) but also there was never any concrete evidence for us UK residents on when it was arriving or how much it would be. Well wait no more it’s now been officially priced and dated by Apple.

May 28th is the date you’ll want to make note of in your diaries. Now if you’re unsure what an iPad is well basically it’s an iPhone as big as your head, a tablet Mac which the Americans have had the pleasure of playing with for a couple of months now and as it’s an Apple product everyone wants them(there was shortages in the US after release due to demand, much like the iPhone). 

It will be available in 2 kinds of model. a “WiFi only” and a “WiFi + 3G”. The “WiFi only” prices start at £429 for a 16GB model, rising to £499 for a 32GB and £599 for a 64GB model. The “WiFi and 3G” models will obviously cost more at £529, £599 and £699 respectively.

Available to pre-order on Monday(if you really really want one I’d suggest you do) they will be available to buy from any Apple store. No doubt the mobile carriers will jump in, perhaps subsidising with contracts or a pay as you go style.

Orange have confirmed today that their network will be selling the iPhone to its customers sometime before the year is out, ending the exclusivity that O2 have selflishly claimed for so long. “reached an agreement to bring iPhone 3G and 3GS to Orange UK customers later this year.” was the quote to have come from the network provider and Apple have also confirmed this.

Making it available in 28 countries worldwide, Orange will be selling it through all of its businesses, shops, online and over the phone. They have also stated it will be available through its “high street partners”. Prices and availability are  unclear at the moment but at least we will be getting more options to snap it up.

They are already allowing customers to register an interest at www.orange.co.uk/iphone

Oh dear, seems a few people are suffering burnt body parts from hot iPhones. A lot of complaints are being made about some serious heat issues. You’d think with the new all singing and dancing iPhone only being out a fortnight this issue might just be a firmware bug but it seems its quite a big problem, to which Apple has responded.

If your phone is exceeding “normal operating temperatures” Apple says it can affect phone charging, display brightness and signal strength. If your iPhone gets too hot Apple recommends you 1) don’t leave it in parked car , 2) don’t leave it in direct sunlight and 3) don’t use processor-intensive Apps in hot conditions (ie using the ipod feature in the sun, or using GPS in a hot car)

If the white iPhone discolouration complaint continues (for those who may not know, people have been reporting that the white backed iPhones when getting extremely hot have discoloured the white plastic to a pink colour) may lead Apple to recall its “Jesus” of smartphones.

Source : T3

No doubt trying to steal some of Palms thunder WildCharge have announced a wireless charging solution for the iPhone.

Starting today, iPhone (3G and 3GS included) and iPod touch users can order up a WildCharge Skin along with a WildCharger Pad in order to bring wire-free charging to their Smartphone.

The phone will require a skin and this is then placed on a charging pad.

The cost? A not to obscene $34.99 for the skin, or $79.99 for the skin and pad.

With the conference been and gone, we gave you some snippets of news. The lower priced MacBook excited me personally, but with so much going on we’ll give you a summary of everything else.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well the first day of WWDC is over and as expected there has been a new iPhone announced, the iPhone 3G S.

This announcement will come under mixed views as the 3G S isn’t so much of a new phone more just an upgrade.

The phone looks pretty much exactly the same however the processor has been upgraded, it is now 3.5G (7.2Mbps HSDPA), the camera is now a 3 megapixel unit with tap-to-autofocus and auto white balance with support for 30fps VGA video recording with editing features. The battery has also been improved with 5 hours of 3G talk time and 9 hours of WiFi internet use.

Finally there is the improved storage of 16GB and 32GB which should be priced as $199 and $299 respectively.

It will go on sale in the US on June 18th and 80 more countries in August. Interestingly this sounds like the new iPhone will beat the Pre on international release.

They are all obviously welcome additions, though I personally think some of them should of been there from the start i.e. 7.2Mbps HSDPA and video recording.

I do think it is perhaps a bit of a lazy release, it seems each iteration of the iPhone is very incremental to keep maintain a certain level of demand for each year. Personally I would of liked to see an OLED screen, Xenon Flash and better graphics capability as well as full flash support.

Hit the jump for a side by side comparison of the iPhone 3G & 3G S

Read the rest of this entry »