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3rd Sensor is Another Proximity Sensor
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Maybe we can finally put this one to rest.
Front facing camera will not come any time soon, not the next rev, and maybe not ever.
Its time for a reality check for the people still clinging to this idea:
1. Video conferencing is a niche market. You can deny this all you want, say that all your friends use it, or say it is the next big thing, but the fact remains most people just dont care about such a feature.
2. Low return on investment. The cost of putting one of these in, especially when there would be such a small novelty market for its use is hard to justify. A camera and additional circuitry takes up valuable internal volume that just cant be spared without sacrificing even more thickness. Before you argue about why Macs contain webcams if they are such a small market, look at the cost of such a device. Built in iSight on a computer is a significantly smaller percentage of part cost compared to that of the iPhone.
3. Worldwide distribution hurdles. Convincing all the partner networks to allow such a feature would be a major undertaking and not all will want it. It takes up bandwidth and reduces the use of airtime minutes. Two things most providers would hate to give in to. Many markets would be unable to use it at all, further making the return on investment harder to justify. Remember VOIP was restricted with the SDK terms for use only on WiFi to appease providers. If such a feature existed it would be for WiFi only, and many would cry foul.
4. Low quality video makes for an un-Apple user experience. To simultaneously encode and decode video and transmit as well as receive data at the same time will take up lots of processing and battery power. Couple this with the immensely variable nature of the bandwidth on a cell phone and you would force Apple to use such an absurdly low resolution and bit rate that they would be embarrassed to deploy it. Usefulness and the cool factor go out the window.
5. No evidence to support it beyond wild speculation. There have been no credible rumors and no hidden tags within the 2.0 firmware pointing to another camera. 3G and GPS were definitively exposed by digging into the latest 2.0 firmware betas. Finger grease in the keynote video is not evidence.
Front facing camera will not come any time soon, not the next rev, and maybe not ever.
Its time for a reality check for the people still clinging to this idea:
1. Video conferencing is a niche market. You can deny this all you want, say that all your friends use it, or say it is the next big thing, but the fact remains most people just dont care about such a feature.
2. Low return on investment. The cost of putting one of these in, especially when there would be such a small novelty market for its use is hard to justify. A camera and additional circuitry takes up valuable internal volume that just cant be spared without sacrificing even more thickness. Before you argue about why Macs contain webcams if they are such a small market, look at the cost of such a device. Built in iSight on a computer is a significantly smaller percentage of part cost compared to that of the iPhone.
3. Worldwide distribution hurdles. Convincing all the partner networks to allow such a feature would be a major undertaking and not all will want it. It takes up bandwidth and reduces the use of airtime minutes. Two things most providers would hate to give in to. Many markets would be unable to use it at all, further making the return on investment harder to justify. Remember VOIP was restricted with the SDK terms for use only on WiFi to appease providers. If such a feature existed it would be for WiFi only, and many would cry foul.
4. Low quality video makes for an un-Apple user experience. To simultaneously encode and decode video and transmit as well as receive data at the same time will take up lots of processing and battery power. Couple this with the immensely variable nature of the bandwidth on a cell phone and you would force Apple to use such an absurdly low resolution and bit rate that they would be embarrassed to deploy it. Usefulness and the cool factor go out the window.
5. No evidence to support it beyond wild speculation. There have been no credible rumors and no hidden tags within the 2.0 firmware pointing to another camera. 3G and GPS were definitively exposed by digging into the latest 2.0 firmware betas. Finger grease in the keynote video is not evidence.
game over
That's going to make the game of "which stupid celebrity has their iPhone upside down" a lot harder to play.
I just realised that it will be almost impossible to detect the orientation of the new iPhone in similar situations and images.
That's going to make the game of "which stupid celebrity has their iPhone upside down" a lot harder to play.
I just realised that it will be almost impossible to detect the orientation of the new iPhone in similar situations and images.
That's going to make the game of "which stupid celebrity has their iPhone upside down" a lot harder to play.
Agreed. I like how they take iPhones in CSI and call them "PDA", hold it upside down and do very weird and retarded stuff on it. The image on the screen is put there in editing and usually it looks terrible. Apple should sue them for bad product placement.
I like the "old" iPhone, at least you recognize it from afar with the aluminum cas and the black bottom. Altough I guess the 3G iPhone is more comfortable to hold because of the rounded back. The iPhone is pretty much perfect in terms of ergonomics. If you hold it in your left hand, thumb on the volume rocker, thumb tip on the vibrate switch, index on the lock switch. Move your thumb down slightly to slide the unlock slider. Seriously, this thing is even nicer to operate in your pocket than a clickwheel ipod. You can reach the volume rocker in the pocket and play/pause with the earbud switch. Lots of iPod touch users are jealous of my volume rocker
total agreement, video chat on any phone is a silly idea, for one how many people know of anyone that has this ability? then ask them how many people they know that can receive/make video calls and of those people who will want to/can have a video conference
I'd really like to know how many people even have video ichat conversations, i'm willing to bet it's not that much...
I think they did. But they don't say that, they say "service" in general
They say "monthly service charges"--which makes their statement wrong.Don't hold your breath, anyway. Apple and AT&T are one year into a five year exclusivity contract; it's highly unlikely that AT&T would allow themselves to be bought out of it. And add to that that AT&T seems to have the only iPhone compatible network in the U.S. right now (even T-Mobile, which uses GSM, uses a slightly different flavor of 3G). Maybe in four more years there will be some new (4G?) standard that all the carriers in the U.S. use, but it seems pretty unlikely -- they all like the current situation, where they only have to get you to sign up, and after that they don't have to compete on service quality at all. I think it is slightly possible that in four years, Apple will produce a Verizon-compatible version of the iPhone -- that would get them a potential market of about 60 million people -- but I don't think it's a strong chance, given that it would require hardware development just to get that potential market.
If there are two proximity sensors, I presume it is possible to calculate the position of a hand in 2 axis.
Various gestures, pocket theremin etc
Various gestures, pocket theremin etc
man! I wanted that front camera!
That way I could use it with skype (when it came out for the Iphone)
I videoconference a lot using skype on my MBP.
That way I could use it with skype (when it came out for the Iphone)
I videoconference a lot using skype on my MBP.
i bet in a few months they will release an update (that you will have to buy) that changes this "proximity sensor" into a full fledged camera.
If they have employed a tiny ccd camera on the front to act as a second proximity sensor then it can be disguised as a optical proximity sensor.... no one will actually know untill we dissect the new iPhone. This can serve two purposes.... act as a proximity sensor unless the Camera App or iChat app is active on the iPhone and work as Camera otherwise. This is a posibility and is highly feasible.... someone at
taking notes now.... or all iPhones been shipped with this already??I will not jump to conclusions until we get the iPhone 3G dissection report from Anandtech.... Bring it on!
Buzzzzz... sorry wrong answer, the correct answer is stupid CDMA!
Even if it were CDMA doesn't mean it would work on your carrier of choice, but by being GSM (like most of the world, really CDMA is only popular in the states with Verizon and Sprint) you can put it on any GSM network by unlocking it and putting in the appropriate SIM card.
I absolutely hate CDMA, and refuse to switch to a carrier with it.
The conspiracy theories were fun while they lasted. It would have been funny if it actually was a hidden camera.
Just playing devil's advocate here, but FYI Verizon Wireless CONSISTENTLY rates far higher in network quality, uptime, customer service than AT&T. Unless you are outside of the US, explain to me again what is so wrong with CDMA?
Also, take a look at VZW's 3G coverage, it basically looks like AT&T's EDGE coverage map.
Just playin' devil's advocate, but honestly most people "complaining about CDMA," really have no idea what they're talkin' about.
PS. I'm gettin' an iPhone on July 11th!
w00master
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)
This is really good in my opinion. I can't tell you how many times I have accidently pressed numbers while talking on the phone.
This is really good in my opinion. I can't tell you how many times I have accidently pressed numbers while talking on the phone.
So, apparently the accellerometer (orientation sensor) doesn't count?
GSM is the Microsoft Windows of the mobile phone world:
-cheap
-popular
-licensed widely
...and...
-technically inferior in every way
That's why the 3G variants of GSM use a CDMA-based radio protocol (but, of course, in a completely incompatible way.)
GSM is the Microsoft Windows of the mobile phone world:
-cheap
-popular
-licensed widely
...and...
-technically inferior in every way
That's why the 3G variants of GSM use a CDMA-based radio protocol (but, of course, in a completely incompatible way.)
