Sunday, December 23, 2007
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Friday, November 2, 2007
Apple iPhone Review
History in Brief
The iPhone was announced by Steve Jobs at the Macworld 2007 Keynote, January 9th, 2007, at 9:42AM. (The same time appears on the iPhone in many ads and photos.) Before that, it was the subject of many fanboy photochops and speculative rumors. It was referred to as the Jesus Phone in December 2006, a move that we at Gizmodo now kind of regret. (Wikipedia's page has a lot more history.)[top]
Hardware
The iPhone's corporeal self is composed of a plate of optical-quality glass featuring a slot for an earpiece up top, a home button on the bottom, which together sandwiches a 3.5-inches. This is a very yummy sandwich. There's a stainless steel rim bevel flush around the face, which caps the aluminum body. The home button brings you back to the main menu if your phone is unlocked, much like a TiVo remote's TiVo button. Some have wished it had a secondary function with a double tap or hold, but I like it as is.
The aluminum rear has a distinct rocker for ring, earpiece, headphone and speaker volume, as well as a toggle for ringtone off, which mutes all sound but that from the iPod functions. The matte finish won't show scuffs, unlike that of an iPod.
On top, there's an instant standby/wake button. It can trigger shutdown if held long enough and then followed up with a finger swipe on the touchscreen. There's also a SIM tray that you eject by paperclip or pin. The headphone jack has that quality of...lameness. It's recessed, so many headphones, minijack cables and cassette adapters for the iPod or any portable media player just won't fit. Belkin sells an extension adapter for $10, but this design feels almost malicious in nature. A shock coming from friendly Apple.
The iPhone's 2MP, 1600x1200 camera is located on the top left of the back, and is nothing more than a recessed lens. No flash. More on how it performs, and what it lacks, later.
The bottom back of the iPhone has an Apple logo dead center, and some etchings: "iPhone" in a large font, with the words "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.", Model, IMEI, FCC ID, serial numbers, as well as capacity (8GB or 4GB in a little rectangle).
The bottom fifth or so of the back plate is plastic, which houses the radio antennas. That places it as far away from the headphone jack as possible for minimal interference. (There's still some GSM buzz at times, when using a dock or a cassette adapter, but never with the stock headphones.) It also houses the 30-pin dock connector you're familiar with from generations of iPods, and a speaker, which is unrated but fairly loud, especially since it appears that only one of those grills is actually a speaker with the second grill possibly being a mic. Bass and ringtones above 50% definitely overdrive the little guy, so I'm not sure many of these speakers will last beyond year one.[top]
(Still to come...)
