Much has been made about the seams in the new iPhone prototype. There appears to be no apparent purpose since the battery is not user accessible and Apple has mastered unibody machining that would make a seamless metal band around the iPhone possible. That indicates that Apple put them there on purpose.
If you look closely, you can see that these are not seams at all. They're intentionally wide, with a black bit (plastic?) in between. A seam would usually be where two or more parts come together, there would be no intermediate part.
There was an Apple patent regarding covering an opening to activate a function in a mobile phone. I believe this is it. The seams are in fact sensors that allow light to reach into the phone and when covered, perform an action.
I propose that Apple is looking to add new "buttons" to the phone, without actually adding buttons. Quick functions that need to be readily available in physical buttons are: Power, Lock, Home, Volume, mute, screen orientation lock, camera app and shutter button.
The ability of the existing buttons to perform these actions has been exhausted. I believe we'll see some changes and additions. Here's what I think we'll see:
Mute - Cover top seam
This is near the headphone jack, which is intuitive and makes perfect sense.
Screen Orientation Lock - Switch on side
Previously assigned to mute. Consistent with iPad.
Camera App - Cover seams on the side
An increase in MP and the addition of a flash will make the iPhone, most people's main point and shoot. For this, the camera app needs to be activated a lot quicker to enable it to match purpose built camera's ability to capture candid and spontaneous moments.
One option is to leave the camera always on in the background and call it up by touching the App's icon. However, this would unnecessarily drain the battery and raise privacy concerns. A more efficient way is to "predict" that the user will use the camera at any second and begin turning it on. This can be detected when the user changes the orientation of the phone to the side followed by a rapid but gradual decrease in light reaching the sensors in the seams, followed by total darkness, meaning the user has covered both seams, as if holding the phone as a camera.
Once the app is on and ready in the background, pressing one of the buttons on the side (the top in landscape orientation) would bring the app to the foreground for the user -- although it was already pre-launched when covering the seams. Pressing one of those buttons again would engage the shutter and take the picture.
These seams could have other multi-purpose functions such as playback in iPod for example.
This iPhone will once again fling it far ahead of the competition with new input methods and industrial design that will set the new bar.
If you look closely, you can see that these are not seams at all. They're intentionally wide, with a black bit (plastic?) in between. A seam would usually be where two or more parts come together, there would be no intermediate part.
There was an Apple patent regarding covering an opening to activate a function in a mobile phone. I believe this is it. The seams are in fact sensors that allow light to reach into the phone and when covered, perform an action.
I propose that Apple is looking to add new "buttons" to the phone, without actually adding buttons. Quick functions that need to be readily available in physical buttons are: Power, Lock, Home, Volume, mute, screen orientation lock, camera app and shutter button.
The ability of the existing buttons to perform these actions has been exhausted. I believe we'll see some changes and additions. Here's what I think we'll see:
Mute - Cover top seam
This is near the headphone jack, which is intuitive and makes perfect sense.
Screen Orientation Lock - Switch on side
Previously assigned to mute. Consistent with iPad.
Camera App - Cover seams on the side
An increase in MP and the addition of a flash will make the iPhone, most people's main point and shoot. For this, the camera app needs to be activated a lot quicker to enable it to match purpose built camera's ability to capture candid and spontaneous moments.
One option is to leave the camera always on in the background and call it up by touching the App's icon. However, this would unnecessarily drain the battery and raise privacy concerns. A more efficient way is to "predict" that the user will use the camera at any second and begin turning it on. This can be detected when the user changes the orientation of the phone to the side followed by a rapid but gradual decrease in light reaching the sensors in the seams, followed by total darkness, meaning the user has covered both seams, as if holding the phone as a camera.
Once the app is on and ready in the background, pressing one of the buttons on the side (the top in landscape orientation) would bring the app to the foreground for the user -- although it was already pre-launched when covering the seams. Pressing one of those buttons again would engage the shutter and take the picture.
These seams could have other multi-purpose functions such as playback in iPod for example.
This iPhone will once again fling it far ahead of the competition with new input methods and industrial design that will set the new bar.
