As you all know by now, Apple released a new product, aimed to the desktop users who want to bring multitouch capability into the applications they use. The device is in all respect a giant laptop touchpad, priced at $69, it fits perfectly on a desk next to the Apple keyboard, the same design and proportions.

Using the Apple Magic Trackpad, you can now click, swipe, scroll, rotate and any other multitouch gesture familiar from the macbook /pro laptops.

The device is wireless (bluetooth) and uses two AA batteries, the only other requirement is the latest version of OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.4

Here is a capture of the settings panel, as you can see, it is possible to use, one, two, three and four fingers for gestures.

The newest version of the known iPhone, iPhone 4 had not even been out for the public, but the early buyers already report problems with the thing, one of them is the classic screen yellowing problem, that hunted the 3G and 3GS models too.

Another more common problems the what appears to be signal loss when holding the device in the hand, touching the left side and the bottom of the phone.

Apple explained that the signal bars dropping problem is not related to the actual signal and it’s more to the way the bars are presented that is problematic, not the actual ability to make or receive a call/transfer data via 3G.

EDIT : It appears that the issue is not only with the iPhone 4, it’s with iOS 4, 3G users experience the same problem with bars dropping when the phone is held in hand.

Here are some videos of the issue :

As you all realized, i took some time for my own and a pause from writing here, but i’m back (and hopefully i wanna dedicate more time to this blog)

In a short timeline for this month, we had this year’s WWDC on june 7, the new iPhone 4 was presented, it looks the same as the leaked ones a month back. Next we have june 21 when the newly renamed iPhone OS, now called iOS version 4.0 will be released as a free update for the 3G, 3GS and will be shipped as default on the iPhone 4 on june 24.

This new iPhone is based on the A4 chip , has a frontal VGA camera and an enhanced 5MP back camera, with flash.

The screen is a very high density one, Apple refers to it as the “Retina Display”, in comparison with the 3G and 3GS, the screen is 960-by-640 resolution 326 ppi, witch is pretty amazing for a mobile device.

The front camera will be used in a new software feature called “FaceTime”, this is a video chat type of call that uses wireless right now for the data traffic.

So as i stated above, the device should be on sale around 24′th june in the US, in Romania it will be available probably around september, just like all the other generations did.

As a general impression about this new toy… hell yeah !   …I can’t wait to get my hands on one !

First thing first, the next new thing will be iOS 4 on june 21, multitasking and enhanced location tweaks, background audio, camera enhancements, home screen wallpapers, cleaner icons and effects, updated safari, folders, better mail and much more.

The multitasking feature won’t be available on the 3G model due to hardware incapability.

The next iPhone screen has been confirmed to be at running at a resolution of 960×640, according to SuperPhone.cz (via Engadget). The site claims to have obtained a next generation iPhone screen (parts have been floating around) and magnified it under a microscope.

From this procedure, they were able to count the RGB elements of the screen and found it to be exactly twice the density in both horizontal and vertical directions compared to the current iPhone. This would quadruple the total number of pixels and increase the resolution from the current 480×320 to 960×640. This would increase the pixel density to a whopping 320dpi — higher than any other device on the market.

As you all know, some time ago apple showed a nice device that you plug into a TV and you have access to the FrontRow interface from OSX, with small improvements and capabilities over the mac version. All went fine and well, but the device never got the public’s attention. It just silently died along the way, surrounded by all this iPhone and iPod, iPad talk around.

The news is out related to Apple’s next version of AppleTV, the device is announced to have the iPhone OS 4.0 software , and the hardware will be close related to that of the next iPhone, including the A4 chip and full 1080p output.

Apple said that they started development long before Google announced they’re Google TV device.

Don’t forget, on June 7 we have the annual WWDC conference, but as much as some want to hear more about this device, Apple announced that this year’s WWDC will be all around the iPhone OS 4.0 and the next iPhone hardware, possibly another iPod touch device will be introduced too.

The new hardware was found in the wind, lost by a Apple employee, here are some of the changes and photos of the hardware. A software testing was not possible because Apple remotely killed the device, and left it deactivated. The news if from Gizmodo, the guys who have the hardware in they’re possession.

Here are some of the changes : a new front facing camera, a better main camera with flash, micro-sim, better display, secondary microphone for noise cancellation, metallic buttons for power, volume and mute, and bigger (presumably better battery). The iPhone is now capable of battery replacement, the back part is removable.

New

• Front-facing video chat camera
• Improved regular back-camera (the lens is quite noticeably larger than the iPhone 3GS)
• Camera flash
• Micro-SIM instead of standard SIM (like the iPad)
• Improved display. It’s unclear if it’s the 960×460 display thrown around before—it certainly looks like it, with the “Connect to iTunes” screen displaying much higher resolution than on a 3GS.
• What looks to be a secondary mic for noise cancellation, at the top, next to the headphone jack
• Split buttons for volume
• Power, mute, and volume buttons are all metallic

Changed

• The back is entirely flat, made of either glass (more likely) or ceramic or shiny plastic in order for the cell signal to poke through. Tapping on the back makes a more hollow and higher pitched sound compared to tapping on the glass on the front/screen, but that could just be the orientation of components inside making for a different sound
• An aluminum border going completely around the outside
• Slightly smaller screen than the 3GS (but seemingly higher resolution)
• Everything is more squared off
• 3 grams heavier
• 16% Larger battery
• Internals components are shrunken, miniaturized and reduced to make room for the larger battery

This was a nice surprise from the folks at Apple, the Opera Mini browser for iPhone has been approved and it’s available now in the app store for free HERE.

My first thought about this piece of software was that it will never see the app store, Apple tends to reject apps that “mimic the phone’s build it features”, but it looks like this one was under the guidelines.

After some minutes of playing around with Opera Mini on my iPhone 3G in parallel with a good friend from ByProzac.info, we both came to the conclusion that IT’S FAST …and by fast i mean really fast. The interface is easy to use and in general straight-forward even to the new people in the “iPhone ecosystem”.

The browser has the speed dial just like the desktop version, and general settings like fullscreen and rendering quality of the images, clear cache, cookies and history. The tap-to-zoom is very snappy and so is the “back” function.

From what I see, the browser was made to compress the big images and graphics on the web, and load them faster, the compression is visible on gradients and smooth colored images. That’s not so problematic, and keep in mind that smaller image size = less bandwidth = lower cost for your iPhone’s data connection.
Being a new browser app on the iPhone, not all webpages will load as perfectly as on Safari, from the first tests I’ve done, it seams to be a small layout problem with WordPress blogs.

It’s pretty nice for a first version, I’m waiting for Opera to update the app in the near future.

Try it, it’s worth a spin.

Update: The page rendering is done on a remote server, the phone only shows the final rendering of the server.

Here are some captures of the app at work :

]]> http://rvxtm.com/opera-mini-for-iphone-approved/feed/ 0 http://rvxtm.com/iphone-os-4-0/ http://rvxtm.com/iphone-os-4-0/#comments Thu, 08 Apr 2010 20:50:25 +0000 RvXtm http://rvxtm.com/?p=826

Today was the first presentation of the next software for the iPhone and iPad. The event was not very long but Apple presented the new features and changes in the 4.0 version of the OS.

From what we know right now, the release date will be “this summer” or in common terms, until September.

As new features, one of the biggest new things is the multitasking capability for the 3GS and latest iPod Touch. The 3G and the 2-nd Generation iPod touch will have lots of new improvements too,but no multitasking.

Others include over 1,500 new APIs, Devs now have access to calendar, camera data, Quick Look, SMS within apps, etc

It includes over 100 new user features: playlist creation, 5x digital zoom for camera, tap-to-focus for video, Photos app has Places support, home screen wallpapers, spellcheck enhancements and more.

Multitasking will be made by double-clicking the home button which pulls up a “dock” showing currently-running apps.

Apple also brings some features from the iPad, like the books library, just as the one on the iPad.

Other new things will be a game center and support for background VoIP like Skype while running other apps.

The apps will now have access to carrier information and more related to connectivity, thanks to the new API’s

As I stated above, the 4.0 software for the iPhone will be available this summer and for the iPad, this fall.

The update sounds good in general, and i’m looking forward to put my hands on an iPad/Iphone 3GS and play a little with the new software when it will be out.

After a glorious day for Apple and the iPad, a new announcement has been made regarding the next big update to the iPhone OS.

The event is set to take place on April 8 and it will include a presentation of the new iPhone software and maybe some hints on the hardware to come. This is alone very exciting, but as Apple always does, nothing will get on our hands at least not so fast. The next iPhone is probably going to be released in 2-3 months time, and the new software around that time too.

iPhone OS4 is said to bring multitasking and a UI refresh as major features, i’m sure that only the latest hardware will take advantage of multitasking as the 3G and 2G versions of the phone are slow and outdated to keep up with more processes.

The curios thing for me is the new UI, as the whole ecosystem is based on the right-now look of the OS.

On the other hand, the iPad had a big success, at least on it’s first days, the apps are starting to get better and optimized for the iPad.

Apple’s long awaited device is 5 hours away from launch in the US. Until now, some apps started to appear in the app store, some only for the iPad and some for iPhone and iPad.

A new version of iTunes was released specially to include support for the iPad and the new apps. A 899$ app is already on the store.

Yhe U.S. Federal Communications Commission has published some photos with the interior of the device, Google rolled out a new iPad-formatted mobile interface for Gmail, building on the HTML5-based mobile format used for the iPhone to create a two-column interface like that used for Apple’s Mail application on the iPad.

Overall the iPad had a wide reach and people overall are interested about the product. Lots of pre-orders have been made on the apple site, and lots of people are going to receive the device in the coming days.

Full screen captures of the device are also available online ,here is a little taste of the new market segment opened by Apple with the iPad.

Personally, I hoped for a full featured OSX tablet but hey, at least we have something to play with until Apple decides to release a full featured tablet computer.