How the iPhone 4 Works

that's from That's from Big Trouble in Little China. Okay, it's a great movie. Has nothing to do with our podcast today, No, because we're actually going to talk about the the iPhone for Yes, this was a topic that we ever received many, many many requests about. In fact, we received requests about it before the iPhone for debuted. And here's a secret for you guys. We don't get uh pre release devices ever. Really uh. We don't have

companies send us these things. We don't review them. So it's hard for us to report on things that haven't come out yet because we don't get our hands on them ourselves. We have to rely on information just like most of you do. But now that the iPhone ford has been out for a while, and uh for a while being a couple of days. Uh, we can kind of talk a little bit about it and what makes

it different from the previous iPhones. Now, we are going to avoid, for the most part, discussions of iOS four because we're going to do that in a separate podcast, since the operating system works on devices besides just the iPhone four, So we're mostly going to look at the hardware here and what we may talk about a couple of features that are iOS for you know, features, but they're unique to the iPhone four right now, so let's start by talking about how it's different from previous iPhones.

And if you were to set an iPhone for next to an iPhone three G S, you would notice some differences right away. That's for one thing, it's flat like an halibut. Yes, and an alibut his name is eric Um. So the old ipho three G and three gs. And actually that every design up until the iPhone four had kind of a rounded back, yes, which meant that it wouldn't sit flat when you set it down on a tablet. Yeah,

well not. It kind of wobbled a little bit because it was rounded just enough so that it would kind of not sit perfectly flat UM, and some people thought that was irritating. Some people didn't care. In fact, a lot of the reviews I've read where they've talked about the design, they've said, you know, we didn't have any issues with the old design, but it is kind of cool to see a new design. The Apple is moving forward.

They're not resting on their laurels. Well, this one is flat flat can flat on both sides, and glass on both sides. That's true on like previous versions, UM, the the iPhone four has glass on both sides. UM. It's point three seven inches thick, four and a half inches tall, two point three one inches wide, waste four point announces has a three and a half inch display with pixels per inch UM and the glass, by the way, it's

aluminum based ceramic glass. It's very, very tough, although you know, don't go playing soccer with it because it will break. If you drop your iPhone four and it breaks, and you say, well, tech stuff said it was really tough. I think when they say really tough, they're saying, well, we figured eventually got to put it in a pocket with your keys, and it might win a fight with your keys or your cat's claws, but it probably will not win a fight with a set of concrete steps.

It might not even win a fight with your keys over a prolonged, prolonged use. So here's the thing, is that the iPhone four is brand new, so it's really until people have had this for a while, and these these phones have had some uh some pretty good use um, and we're not really going to know for sure. We're not gonna know it. Maybe that the scratches show up in time, but but it seems to be a pretty

hardy design so far. Also, that that glass we talked about, it has an oleophobic coating which is supposed to kind of keep smudges away. Uh, it's supposed to, you know, the oleophobic means that the oils and your skin aren't supposed to be able to cling to that glass. It's supposed to not accumulate um. But from what I've seen, it's a smudge magnet um. If it's like the coating on my first generation iPod Touch, it's how we're going to do a reasonably decent job at avoiding smudges. If

it's more like the coating on my iPad um. It will end up needing to be wiped down about every twenty three seconds or so. Yeah, I'm thinking it's going to be more like the iPad um. So the especially from what I've been reading. I don't own an iPhone for nor do I, so we can't really talk about this from personal use perspective. Um, I have held one alert? Yeah,

where was that? I got friends who own one? You've been cheating on me with other people who know things about tech I've got all right, I've got some friends who are Apple fanatics. Yeah, I mean I'm I like Apple, all right. I know I got the anti mac bias rep early on and tech stuff, but that's just not true. Um, but I'm not a fanatic. You know. I don't go out there and buy the product as soon as it hits the market. I do that for Android. Uh. The I've never I've never stood in a line for an

Apple product, And that's not true. That was the very first iMac. That was the last time I stood in a line. So you're older and wiser now, at least older. Well, I just don't feel like standing a line anymore. So you're older and lazier now. So the Yeah, the the it's a it's a neat little device. I mean it's you know, it's nice design. I like it a lot. They have they have done have made quite a few improvements to it. For example, the camera. Yes, it's a

five megapixel camera. Yes, UM has a larger the the most important thing since we've done the megapixel myth busting in our previous podcast. And it has a larger image sensor. Yeah, it's got it's got a really good color detection and uh contrast features as well. From what I understand, the pictures that you take with this camera do tend to be very sharp and and the colors are very true to what the actual colors are. So apparently, you know, as a camera in a phone, it serves quite well.

And and in fact we should go ahead and say there's not just one, there two because it's one on the back that that it has people traditionally use I guess if you will, for the for taking photos that you might say upload to Flicker or you know, put on your Facebook profile. That's that's the big one. That's that's the larger photo size and UM photo sensor on it. So yeah, there's a forward facing in and back facing camera.

The forward facing camera is used for other features like FaceTime when you can also use the back facing camera for FaceTime if you want to. And we'll get into FaceTime and a little bit. That's one of those i iOS four features that is unique right now to the iPhone four. Yes, I'm sure eventually it will come to other devices, but right now the iPhone four is the

only thing that can run it. Um. Before we leave the camera thing, though, you feel like I should mention the l E ED Oh yes, it has a flash. I feel like if it's an l D maybe we should put flash in quotes. But it does function that way. You can turn it on even for video mode. If you want to record video. You can use your I S I phone for for that purpose. Hello, let me trip over that. And uh, you can use the LED flash to take still photos or leave it on for

video recording. Yeah. So now you don't have to worry about those low light situations as much, where you know, you take the photo and then eventually you look at it and you realize you can't make out any of the details. The l a ED should help a little bit with that. Not grant, you're still not gonna be able to go into pitch black and rooms and take

a picture and expect full D detail. But it'll help. Um, you were mentioning the display, the three t six pixels per square inch display, it's a the The full resolution is ninety six forty pixels. UM that three six pixels

per square inch. The the When Jobs announced this at the Worldwide Developers Conference, UM, he called it a retina display, and the claim was that the human eye is only capable of detecting around three hundred pixels per inch at a distance of around ten or eleven inches from your face. That's not entirely true, um, Your ability to detect that kind of resolution. The number of pixels per inch depends on several factors, the main one being distanced from your eyes.

So yeah, between like nine and twelve inches. It maybe somewhere in the realm of four hundred pixels per inch. That's not to say that the display isn't gorgeous. It is beautiful. It's probably the best looking display I've ever seen on the phone. I still haven't seen one in person yet. I have not seen the EVO, which has a very good screen as well. But out of all the ones, I have seen. It is the sharpest image

I've ever It's beautiful. The colors are very vibrant. Um. You don't really see that pixelation that you can see on a lot of other devices. So even though the claim that this is that it's a greater resolution than the human eye can possibly detect is probably not entirely accurate, I don't think it matters. That's nitpicking. Yeah, Like if I were to stand up, Mr Jobs, I I beg to differ at ten inches, I can detect four hundred and seven pixel per edge, and that's greater than your

three whatever. Um, I would expect to be ejected immediately from the conference because that is nitpicking. The display is a amazing um so. Uh. Another thing that you'll notice if you're just looking at the phone before you've even turned it on. It has buttons. Yes, it does have buttons. Yeah, something that you don't expect to see on an Apple device. Necessarily they try to get away from that as much

as possible. But yeah, it has has dedicated volume up and volume down buttons as opposed to the little mono button that it used to have. Yeah. Yeah, they found out that people actually want that. I think. Yeah, I think I think it just works better. Also, another thing that is noticeable is that it has sort of an aluminum border along the edge. Well it's not actually aluminium, No, it's not, but that's what looks like, oh yeah, yeah, it's Um, it's actually that's the that serves as an antenna.

Actually to antennas, yes it does. There's one that's the WiFi Bluetooth antenna. One that's the edge three G antenna. This also has caused some issues which I guess we can talk about really quickly. Um. It turns out that if you hold the phone a certain way known as now and forever the wrong way, um, that you could bridge the gap between these two antenna and by bridging

the gap, you sort of create one long antenna. And the thing about antenna, one of the things about antenna is that, uh, the length of the antenna helps determine how efficient that antenna isn't picking up the signals. It needs to be a particular length in order to pick up certain frequencies of radio signals efficiently. So if you hold the phone in a certain way so that you're bridging that gap, you've created a long antenna. It's not as efficient at at picking up signals, and you may

notice that your reception suffers as a result. People have said that, you know, they'll look at the phone, it'll have let's say four bars of reception, and then they pick the phone up and they look at it and it either loses one or two bars immediately. Well, it's because they're bridging that gap. Apple's response to this, Steve jobs response to this actually in an email, was you're

holding it wrong. So either don't hold it that way, or buy one of our Apple iPhone four cases that will create you know, by putting it into the case, you no longer going to have contact with the antenna.

You won't make that problem happen. Uh. This has caused some journalists to criticize Apple because it's the first time that they've offered an actual Apple case for for one of their products for sale for one of their products, and the well, not the only time, but yeah, that bumper, And it does appear in the sense that it's not a this instead of going with the third party thing, they've gone this is an Apple produced case that is supposed to solve this problem, and it's an additional thirty

dollars so for the say conspiracy theorists. They might say, oh, so you're not going to give us a free uh bumper, which is what Apple is calling it. Um, so you're automatically you knew about this and you're doing this. This is what some conspiracy or they're or they're just saying like, oh, so what you're telling us is you've you've got a

flaw on your design. And instead of instead of fixing it or giving us a fix the legitimate customers, you're telling the customers like, oh, well, here's the device, but if you want to work, you need to buy this. It's almost like extortion. Um. That's what some people are criticizing Apple about again. UM. Now, personally, I did not notice this because I did not know about that that particular issue when I was handling the iPhone for so I didn't even think to look for it. Um. I

had not heard about it. So I can't report from personal experience if it's you know, the case or not. Well, apparently some it seems to affect people who are left handed a little bit more frequently. Yes, And I am of the sinister persuasion, so it would hit me. Um. And apparently a from what I read there is a left handed uh group and that center group, Yeah, that

sent a criticism to Apple about it. UM for what it's worth, And I mean, I haven't used it, and I don't know if there's anything uh, you know, wrong, if they're actually doing something for for nefarious purposes or not. But let's just say it's it's part of the design. UM. Ours Technica actually talked to UM, an organization known as Antennesis. UM. They're involved with mobile device antennas and UM Basically they asked them, you know, is this legitimate? Is there you know,

something strange going on? And apparently from what from what Antennesis told Ours Technica, UM, the iPhone four isn't the only phone to have a some kind of problem along these lines. UM. Partly this is because of FCC restrictions on where radiation can emit from a phone, and they try to put uh the antenna towards the bottom, away

from your head, towards where your job would UM. And I'm, you know, thinking back on it my motor role razor back a couple of years ago when I used one of those the antenna is, if I'm not mistaken, down towards the bottom, the fat end of the phone where the microphone is as well. Um, because they don't want

that up near your brain, I guess. Um. So apparently others like the HTC Droid Incredible um and Google's Nexus one Android phone and some Nokia phones also have a version of this problem where the antenna is placed on the outside of the case and you can actually touch it and create that uh antennas circuit problem and it

will cause reception problems and possibly dropped calls. Um. But it's not just apparently, it also has to do with the way the manufacturer tries to get around the SEC regulations and you know, work with that, and it has a lot to do with a lot of different people apparently, but certain phones, including the iPhone for have that problem.

Now we've talked a lot about what's on the outside of this device, why don't we when we dive into the device little bit and talk about some of the stuff that makes it go okay, like maybe the gyroscope. I was gonna actually start with the processor. Oh, let's go with the processes. You know, it's it's a one giga Hurts arm cortex A eight chip. It's the same thing that you find in the iPad except ours technical

says that it does not move quite as quickly. It's not as brisk as the the iPads processor, at least in they're testing, um and does things. It does things almost as fast, but it's not as fast. Now maybe that's a result of having the other iPhone guts in there and it's having to run all that other stuff could be but um, it also may not be quite as fast. But yeah, Apple says it's a one gigga Hurts processor. Uh, it's got phone or in twelve megabytes or ram um and uh. Now we're going to go

into the whole gyroscope thing now. So it has an accelerometer like the previous iPhones, which allows you when you you know, turn it from portrait to landscape. That's what makes the screen flip. Uh, and can sense motion in certain directions. Now it has also a three access gyroscope. Yes, Steve Jobs used in his keynote speech for the announcement of the iPhone for to play Jenga in front of a whole auditorium full of people, right, and he got roundly mocked by the Tech for Us for playing Jenga.

Although from what I understand, the people who were actually there, who were not jaded tech journalists, thought it was kind of cool. As they were developers. They were looking at it not from oh this is such a goofy little demo. They were thinking of, oh my gosh, what are the

potential uses for this technology. Yes, maybe Jenga is not the most UM useful application for adding a gyroscope, but it does give you much more control, much more precision of the control that you can the motion controls in the iPhone. So the gyroscope gives you pitch yaw and rolla y'all, and the accelerometer helps. Uh. When paired with the accelerometer and the gyroscope, you've got a six axis controller, yes, and you know you have can you have motion detection

along six different axes of motions. So that means that developers can create games or other applications that um can really take advantage of this in ways that the previous iPhones could not handle. And it's also it's it's starting to sound a lot like things like the we mote and the Sony's Move controller, which also have these these gyroscopes and accelerometers in them in order to translate your

emotions into actions. In a in a virtual environment. So now the iPhone four could theoretically do the same sort of stuff. I would not be surprised to eventually see iPhone type uh apps that would allow you to control console based uh actions. It might take a while because you're gonna have you know, and I'm sure they would be branded by whatever company it was that was, you know,

running the console. But so we think about that, you could actually theoretically, because of the the capabilities of this phone, you could turn it into a video game controller for specific console. Well, the iPhone has already been used to some degree as a controller, yeah, for different for different applications. For remote you can use as a remote controller for certain uh, certain electronic devices. So yeah, it's it's unheard of, but this will make it far more functional in that

in that regard. Now, I don't know if anyone would ever go through the trouble to actually do that, I mean, but it's a potential. Yeah, it's it's it's not unheard of. So um, it also has uh there's something else that kind of the battery. Yeah, it's gonna talk about the battery life. Yes, So one of the things about the iPhone for is that the battery life is actually much longer than it uh than previous iPhones. Um. In fact, uh, even though it's a thinner device, the weight of the

phone might surprise some people. They think like, oh, it should be lighter than the old iPhones because it's thinner. Um, it's about the same. Yeah, And some people think that the reason why it's about the same is because the battery is actually larger. So even though it's lost some some girth, it's it's still it's still the same way

because the battery. Apple says that the battery will give you up to seven hours of talking time without without a need to recharge, or six hours of browsing if you're on a three G network, or ten hours of browsing if you're on WiFi, and over three hundred hours of standby power okay, which is pretty awesome. Ours Technical found about twenty five hours of general use, um video, about eleven and a half music about you know this is what this is what's kind of interesting because Apple's

claims are way lower than those numbers. But I guess that's probably part of the thing is that you know, they don't want to make a claim and then have someone come out with it saying, oh, it's nowhere near that I and I wouldn't want to either. I understand why they would do that. The recharge cycle to that they found was about an hour and a half, which

really not bad, not bad at that is phenomenal. I mean, you know what, as much as I've said, like I'm not really interested in getting an iPhone or whatever, the iPhone for a lot of the features have me interested in. I mean, I've thought about the potential of once my contract is up, moving to A T and T and getting an iPhone. Um, that would be a good segue because I was going to add this point. Yeah, Um, last night, the day that we're recording this, the rumors

started breaking. Last night, Bloomberg business Week said that they had heard rumors that Apple might be bringing the iPhone for two Verizons network. Now we've heard departure from A T and T being the exclusive provider here in the United States right now, and we should we should point out a couple of things. First of all, uh, we

are we well, first of all rumor. Second of all, we are aware that in other countries, the iPhone can be found on multiple carriers within certain countries, that's awesome here. Not in the United States. Yeah, in the United States, A T and T is the only network that that carries the iPhone. There was an exclusivity agreement that I had heard originally spanned five years, and it was signed in two thousand seven, which would mean that we'd still have a couple of years to go before we see

the iPhone on any other carrier. But it's really never been made public exactly how long that agreement is. Right, So the two thousand twelve figure may be made up of out of thin air, right, and maybe that that's not accurate, and that we could see an iPhone on Verizon by the end of the year. However, I will also say that these same rumors have been around ever since the iPhone debuted. Yes, that's true. A lot of

people have been have been itching to see this happen. Um, So we're talking three years of rumors of the iPhone going somewhere else, and so far it stayed put. You know. One of the one of the aspects I've seen added to that rumor is that it would be on Verizon's LTE network, and that's that's four G communication. It's a competitor to y Max. I think we've talked about it at least once on our podcast. And the thing is, um,

Verizon's network for G network is currently being built out. Um. Also, there are no LTE phones here in the United States yet, so I don't know that it would happen like Sprint has one, do they really? Yeah, Sprint has an lt Okay, because when I was reading this, I had seen something that said there weren't in phone. It might be actually I think it's Amax Max. Well, but yeah, so it's a four G phone. It's just not an ELTI phone. Um. Good because you know I actually read it in a

news outlet. Um. The thing is, h I only get my news from illegitimate el but down the street tells me stuff Richards Scimmon Villany. Um, No, that would be a thing though, Um, if you're expecting it, you know, hey, it's January one, two thousand eleven. Where's my Verizon iPhone for it? Well, it probably if if that's if that's contingent, if the rumor is contingent on that happening, it's probably not going to be the very very first part of next year because there's a lot of work to be done.

Building out the network to make it, to provide support for it even if it's not. Like the other big deal is that is that the iPhone runs on G S M technology. Yeah, the currents would be Verizon uses C d M A and whereas three G network. Right, but you have to imagine that a phone cannot be exclusively for G. I can't imagine why you would want to limit yourself to a network you're building out that

way now, right exactly. It's just like just like phones right now, three G phones are not exclusively three G. They also run on the two G two networks networks because if you made them exclusively three G, you're you'd be very limited and where you can use that phone. Yes, so for phone calls that's not really so much of an issue. It's more of an issue. For data it can be an issue though. Let's say because it's a cell phone, it's portable, so you can move in and

out of networks very quickly. And there's some areas that have a lot of three G support, but not not all of them, like in Atlanta, they're they're very You can go through a neighborhood and go from a three G supported area to two G. Well, what I mean is if you're going to use it to make phone calls, switching from a three G network to a two network isn't nearly as critical, right right as it would be if you're you know, surfing the web and then you know,

you move to Q network and then because then you slow down significantly. Yeah, yeah, I was just telling that's what I mean, dropping a call perspective. Oh yeah, yeah. Switching well, I mean moving from one tower to another. Sometimes the handoff is not sweet, is not completely sweet, and then really that's the case for pretty much everybody.

I think that's not or or, but anyway, So G s M is the technology the A T and T n T mobile use the United States, also the technology that's most widely used throughout the rest of the world, whereas Verizon and Sprint both runs c d M A technology. So it's it's and the two are not patible. And we've talked about that and tech stuff before as well.

So for the iPhone four to go to Verizon, it would also mean that you would need a c d M A chip in there instead of a G s M chip or in addition to and I'm guessing just based upon the form factor that there's not a whole lot of room to squeeze an extra components, so you would have to switch them out, so you're you wouldn't be able to take like you wouldn't be able to buy a uh an iPhone four with no contract with a T and T and then port it over to Verizon.

Now you can see that with the Google Nexus one Android phone. Yeah, because there is one that can be used on C d M A and there's one that can be used on G S M. But you know you can't you can't between the two, right um. And by the way, you can buy an iPhone four without a contract if you want to, but that doesn't mean

that you can move it to a different network. It just means that you're paying months to month as opposed to agreeing to a two year deal with a T and T. UM and UH I guess we should mention that they're two different UH capacity versions of the iPhone four. There's a sixteen gigabyte and the thirty two gigabyte, which is you know that the reason you need those larger sizes because you know before it used to be like

eight gigabytes was the big one. UM. Now that now that they can capture video in a higher resolution and you can also do some video editing on the iPhone four. Um, you need that extra space otherwise you just run out pretty quickly. Also, they switched to from SIM to microsome for the iPhone four, and again the reason for that, at least what Steve Job says, the reason for that is so that they can make more room for the battery, right, so they had to go to microsom instead of keeping it.

So you can't use your old SIM card in the

iPhone four unless you shave it down. I'm gonna look this up real quick too, but I'm I'm willing I think if I'm not mistaken, Apple did the same thing with the iPad that the three G has a microsome in it, but I'm not certain looking that up as we talk, all right, well, then I will also for me, I will also mention that if you are curious as to how much radiation you are absorbing when you use your iPhone for according to the report I read in uh C net, it is has an essay R rating

of one point one seven watts per kilogram, which is underneath the one point six watts per kilogram limit in the United States. And yes, the the WiFi and three G version of the iPad UH uses a micro sim card tray as well. So, um, I'm wondering if Apple's I mean, obviously it's more important for the iPhone than it would be for uh, you know, an iPad, But it seems to me that Apple's probably standardizing, as it

usually does with things like this. They pick a format and go, Okay, this is the one we need for this purpose. So let's make it universal so we don't need to mess with the other chef. Let's talk very quickly before we wrap this up, I want to talk about one specific function of the iPhone four that is not found in any other Apple product right now, which is FaceTime. I mentioned it earlier in the podcast. So FaceTime is the video calling software that is included with

iOS four, and only the iPhone four supports it. You can only use it with a fellow iPhone for user at this point. At this point, so as of the time that we're recording this podcast, there are very straight limitations on the FaceTime. You can use either the front or back facing camera when you're using it once you once you make your call, but you can only call other iPhone for users, and you can only do it over WiFi. You cannot do it over the three G

or edge networks. So if you want to make one of these calls, you have to be in a Wi Fi hotspot and you have to call another iPhone for user. We expect that will probably change over time, especially as Apple introduces new products. I mean, we may eventually see an iPod touch that has a camera or what I think is the most realistic UM development is we'll see an iPad with a camera that will allow you to make the video calls. Uh. And so I've heard that

this feature is pretty neat. I hear that the video is is not bad. Uh, there's not a whole lot of issues with clipping and that kind of stuff. Um, it's not necessarily the highest resolution that you've ever seen, although if you're using the back facing camera it will the quality be a little bit better. You just will be able to see the other person, at which point I'm wondering, why are you're bothering with a video call in the first place. But it's it seems like it's

a pretty cool feature. Now. I don't know how other developers are going to respond to the to the whole face time thing like developers, like let's say people behind Skype, where you think, well, why are you allowing this Apple backed video calling service, but you won't allow necessarily the Skype version, like why can't we tap into that same thing? And Skype version is only for voice right so you

can't do the video call right now. So it remains to be seen how that plays out, whether or not FaceTime will be opened up enough so that other developers can take advantage of that and uh and build a new um new features, or whether or not will get opened up to the point where people who are on other devices that aren't even owned by Apple, if they can do video calls with someone who has an iPhone.

For that would really surprise me to see that. I would be shocked if let's say that Android, there's an Android handset that comes out that also has a camera that also can do video calls, because I mean, this is not the first phone that could do video calls.

There have been other ones before it. Um, it would really shock me if Apple opened it up enough so that the Android user and the iPhone user could do a video call between the two, or if somebody else came out with an Android app that would work on say a BlackBerry, like a third party software developer that came out with something that worked on BlackBerry, Nokia, uh Android, and they wanted to put it in the iPhone apps or whether Apple would actually go you know, yeah, so

we'll have to We'll have to keep an eye out on that. But that's the skinny on the iPhone for hope that satisfies all of you people who have written in multiple times asking us to do an iPhone for podcast. It does look like a pretty cool device and um, and I admittedly I am attempted to switch over once my contract is up, assuming there's not some amazing Android device available for me to upgrade. Two well, uh, you know, since I'm still holding off on the smartphone thing, I'll

just keep watching and see what happens. But I do think that the uh the iPhone is the kind of device that ups the anti for everyone else. Um, which is good I think because I think it will also inspire the HTC and Motorole and some of the others to continue building um fantastic new devices with more and more capabilities. And it's you know, it's going to be good for the market in UM. In general, I think to have new devices with a better technology like that,

Competition is always a good thing. Oh yeah, so that wraps up this discussion. If you guys have any questions, if you want us to cover any other specific kind of technology, let us know. You can write us. Our email address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com and Chris and I will talk to you again

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