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.

The Tegra was the original powerhouse in the mobile world powering the soon to be Microsoft Kin Mobile phones and also that “not for Britain” PMP the Zune HD. With stiff competition from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, mobile Intel chips and ARM, all good at what they do. TEGRA never failed to impress in its reviews and actions delivering application speed and HD video with ease.

Now Nvidia are planning to release the next TEGRA chip sometime this year, hoping to launch in conjunction with the 3rd generation of Android. Yes that’s right rather than sticking with Microsoft NVIDIA has obviously spotted the potential in Google’s OS and it’s rise in popularity in the mobile market. Co-Founder Jen-Hsun Huang has said that the future holds plenty of TEGRA powered Android phones and tablets to confirm this. He’s also gone on to point out that their main rival will be the iPad and it’s chipset the A4, currently the iPad’s chip and the planned next processor to be in the iPhone 4.0.

“The bar is pretty high for all the mobile players and they need a processor that can keep up with the A4. If not be much better than what the A4 can do because they have to take on the leader in the space.” – Huang on the Apple A4 processor

“I think the second generation Tegra has been doing incredibly well because Android is doing incredibly well. So we’re going to come to market with second-generation Tegra with the third generation Android.” Huang on Tegra and Android.

Certainly will make for a more interesting competition in the future for sure.

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

China’s InfoTimes is reporting via Foxconn(the makers of the iPhone) that Apple will be releasing a Netbook. Its reported to have a 9.7” touchscreen and you should be able to pick one up for $800 in the U.S. What price that would mean for the UK remains to be seen but personally, I can’t see it being more than £800.

This is a surprise really after Steve Jobs slated netbooks and said "As best as we can tell, there's not a lot of them being sold." So why the turn round especially when we also said "one of our entrants into that category if you will is the iPhone, for browsing the internet, and doing email and all the other things that a netbook lets you do".

All this is just strong rumours at the moment so we wont know the full details unless its announced. The main questions whats powerin it and what OS is it running. Will it be good enough for Snow Leopard or will it run an iPhone 3.0 style OS? Who knows?

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 »

According to Kotaku which claims sources close to Apple are reporting, the new model iPhone will contain a number of hardware changes from current iPhones and is rumoured to be hitting American Shelves around July 17th.

The new SKU will include a built-in 3D graphics chip offering better performance and speed for games and apps. Improved Bluetooth support is also a feature, increasing reliability and performance of wireless connections perhaps for future compatibility to wireless keyboards, games controllers and other third-party bluetooth devices

This obviously shows Apple’s appetite to improve their handheld platform with more rumours of Apple buying into game developers and bringing more “in-house” game development. Another rumour is that the AppStore will get a makeover to accommodate the games content.

The WWD conference next week will confirm whether or not these rumours are true.