After its much-chronicled, unofficially leaked debut, the iPhone 4G is now ready for its closeup. Check out the official video on the Apple site.
Possible game-changer: FaceTime video calling with the ability to switch between front-of-phone and back-of-phone views on the fly. (Something I wish the Flip did.)
Possible game-choker: Battery life. They tout 40% more battery life thanks to a bigger battery. I’m guessing you’ll need it. Recharging after every FaceTime call would suck.
I think a lot of people will wait until the whole AT&T marriage sorts itself out. If that honeymoon is, indeed, over and iPhone opens to Verizon and other carriers, it’s game over for every other smartphone.
June 7th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
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June 7th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
I don’t think it’s necessarily game over for every other smartphone. For one, I know lots of people who are still tied to physical keyboards (Blackberry, Palm Pre) and would never consider a phone without one. While the iPhone 4 is a very nice device, other device manufacturers such as HTC (over 80% smartphone market share) have proven that they can design very capable smartphones (e.g. EVO 4G).
Android has been gaining a lot of traction with users and the momentum doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon, plus it offers features like tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot which the iPhone OS 4 still doesn’t support. Android handsets also come in at a variety of price points, making them accessible to a larger audience, although the disadvantage is the difficulty developers have in developing for Android when not all devices support the latest and greatest version of the OS.
For me the biggest game-changer on the iPhone 4 is the ability to multitask. Apple designed it in a very elegant way that addresses concerns over battery life. That eliminates one of the biggest advantages Android had over iPhone OS. They did announce support for Flash at the Google I/O conference, though.
June 8th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Correction: apparently I was incorrect about iPhone tethering. I was reading an article about AT&T’s changes to its data plan rates this morning and apparently they’ll be offering tethering on the iPhone for $20/month when OS 4 is released.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:19 am
Thanks for the comments, John. I fully admit to some over zealous Apple raving in my conclusion that all other phones are doomed. And to using “game over” as a natural evolution of the “game changer” and “game choker” structure.
I certainly don’t believe Google will throw up their hands anytime soon. I just think Apple’s really upped the game again and, honestly, I’ll be interested to see how everyone else responds in this feature leapfrog. (The Microsoft Kin’s adoption of cloud computing is pretty interesting to me.) Mobility is the fastest moving technology trend going now and I find it fascinating.