iPhone 4, iPhone OS renamed to iOS, FaceTime

In case anyone missed it, Apple revealed iPhone 4 yesterday along with all its improvements. There is a lot of coverage out there on it so I’ll just concentrate on my reactions to the device.

The new iPhone is thinner and made with glass on both the top and bottom. In between the two pieces of glass is a stainless steel bezel which also doubles as the antenna so in effect the antenna has been moved to the outside of the phone. Unfortunately, it does nothing to improve reception on the Verizon network.

Apple has also (finally) decided that iPhone OS isn’t a fitting name for their devices and instead of renamed it to iOS. It really should have been called this from the beginning because the iPod touch came out immediately after the iPhone and the iPad was already in the works. In fact, in a recent interview (D8) Jobs revealed that the iPad was in development before the iPhone and that the iPhone was created based from the iPad idea. At any rate, this is the first time I think of where Apple has renamed such a major product at this stage in the game. I always figured Microsoft was the only company that couldn’t stick with a name.

iPhone 4 also finally gets the forward facing camera everyone has been clamoring for and frankly, I just don’t see this being as big a deal as everyone claims. Of course, a front facing camera is useless unless you have a reason to use it and Apple’s reason is the new FaceTime app. FaceTime is really nothing more than iChat for iPhone but if you are to believe what you hear in Apple’s promotional video on their site it’s the second coming of Christ. I’m an Apple guy but they talk up FaceTime as if we haven’t been doing video chatting for over ten years. Am I the only one who remembers the black and white quikcam?. I just don’t see it catching on today any more than it has prior to iPhone 4.

2 comments

  1. I agree about the facetime. It will be cool just to try on a mobile device… And it will be a fad for a few months. Everyone will want to try it out, but then it will fade away and everyone will return to their normal audio-only calls.

  2. I agree with your comments. I personally think that Apple did a good job with the phone but a not so good job explaining that all they did was take ideas other phones already had and only implemented them into their new iphone4. I don’t see any real amazing NEW ideas with the iphone4. Plus the most dissappinting part for me is that the video chat only works on wifi. What a bunch of crap. I have my nexus one and I use fring video chat using my 3g T-Mobile connection and it works great. Ok that’s my two cents.

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