Early Hands On Videos from iPhone 4, Camera Flash, Multicore Support

[captain kaos]

Don't you think it's pathetic it took all the way to 2010 to offer a flash for a camera, when even the most basic of "smart phones" have been doing it for over a decade now?

Yep. But that's Apple for you. They wave the shiney phone in your face with one hand to distract you, and drip feed things things other phone have had for years in the other.

And all the time they're telling you its all new and brilliant!

This is the main reason im getting away from apple. Once you see this you work out there are things that do the same as apple (if not better) but at a fraction of the price.

 

[BryanLyle]

What is being shown in this video is not multi-tasking. It's quick application switching. It seems that the list of applications that pop up are just recent applications that were used.

 

[Liquorpuki]

I just don't understand your complaint AT ALL. The "true multitasking" arguments that many people have just don't use any consumer-based logic. They are 100% geek and technical arguments that don't matter to real-world people.

He's mad because he wanted to use multitasking to remote control his microwave and and fridge at the same time

Stupid Apple, they never give their customers what they want

 

[Nausicaa]

Jeebus, that wallpapered screen is ugly.

As is the Ipad desktop, with its disproportionate icons and unused real estate.

Is Apple's B team of designers making the major UI decisions now?

Not to drag this off topic, but the iPad desktop looks great. The screen isn't that big. It would look much worse with an 8*6 grid of 48 apps plastered all over the screen.

 

[DakotaGuy]

Overall it looks good. I probably won't be seeing many of these new features because I am not planning to replace my 2G iPod Touch anytime soon after buying an iPad, but there are a couple of features that I really like on my Android phone that I don't see here. It's nice to see they are finally offering wallpaper for the home screen on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

One thing is the Notification panel. I love the pull down window shade that shows all of my notifications. It is very handy and is one of my favorite features of Android.

The second is on screen widgets. This is also a great feature on my Android phone. I love how easy it is to adjust power settings on the widget, check news and weather and keep track of facebook updates. I think widgets would be even better for the iPad. It has a lot of screen real estate and widgets would work great on it.

 

[gwangung]

What is being shown in this video is not multi-tasking.

I'm gonna BRAIN the next person who says "It's not multi-tasking" without explaining what difference it's going to make to the typical user.

 

[Liquorpuki]

deleted

 

[iTzChasE]

omg FLASH? oh wait... nvm It's just Apples new Amazing revolutionary LED that goes off when you take a picture. yay 4

 

[RalfTheDog]

I'm gonna BRAIN the next person who says "It's not multi-tasking" without explaining what difference it's going to make to the typical user.

It's not multi-tasking. True multi-tasking would drain the battery, use up more RAM and make the device run hotter.

 

[RalfTheDog]

Is the new OS very stable?

No, that is why it is the first public beta. Never use beta software for anything important. It is just for testing.

 

[Friscohoya]

Ah the sweet language of poland....

 

[Krevnik]

It is true that Grand Central Dispatch can leverage multiple CPU cores, but the PRIMARY use of it is to leverage the much more plentiful *GPU cores*, which are already present on both the iPhone and the iPad.

Just as an example, I have the lowest end GPU supported by GCD in my MBP - an 8600GT. But it's 32 wimpy cores have twice the net GCD performance of the 16 SIMD lanes on my Core2Duo.

That's what's so wonderful about these new technologies - they make SIMD multicore programming and GPU programming hte same.

You are confusing GCD and OpenCL. OpenCL is the tool to split stuff among GPUs and CPUs... GCD only handles absurdly simple thread pools. (Edit: and by absurdly simple, I mean from a developer standpoint... GCD is still extremely powerful and makes the key tasks of spinning code into a thread LEGO-easy)

Threading is still useful on single-core systems, since you can more easily offload processing to background threads and let the main thread focus on handling user input. An app that does processing on the main thread will hang, freeze, and do all sorts of weird stuff that gives a poor experience if the work to be done takes more than a fraction of a second.

 

[polishmacuser]

yay its in Polish but sucks i cant use it on my iPod touch 2nd gen :/

 

[btcutter]

No. Pathetic is posting on a message board about the lack of a flashlight on your phone

+1

 

[Wayfarer]

Yeah, the iPhone doesn't suck.

I'm far more interested in usability than a check list of features that are there but poorly implemented.

Excellent point!

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

[focalplane]

Seems quite stable so far. Had a few syncing issues. Looks like the wallpaper on the home screen isnt supported on the 3G

 

[BryanLyle]

I'm gonna BRAIN the next person who says "It's not multi-tasking" without explaining what difference it's going to make to the typical user.

What it means to me is, the applications aren't actually running. So you have to wait for them to reload. Once applications are rewritten to use the new API calls, then they will remain running in the background while you go and do other things.

 

[focalplane]

The folder thingy can be a bit fiddly. Just found myself chasing the folder round the screen with an icon!

Eventually got it in there

 

[tkermit]

Engadget has a video too:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/08/iphone-os-4-hands-on/

I thought the narrator was pretty annoying in that one...

I'm slightly confused with the multi-tasking though...

Me, too , which has me kind of worried. It's never a good sign if a UI concept has to be explained to you first, which seems to be the case here...

 

[pika2000]

I can see the pattern now. Apple will always make the next iPhone to be more attractive to people that are using 2 generations older iPhone. Eg. the 3G didn't add much to the 2G iPhone (other than the 3G radio itself and GPS). The 3GS didn't add much to the iPhone 3G (other than faster hardware and video recording), but it's a great upgrade for iPhone 2G users. Seeing that the iPhone 3G won't have multi-tasking, the next iPhone would be a great upgrade for iPhone 3G users, but probably won't be as much for 3GS users. Pretty smart move to follow the cycle of 2-yr contracts that most people are on.

 

[jragosta]

What is being shown in this video is not multi-tasking. It's quick application switching.

I didn't care to watch the video, but I don't really care what they showed. Jobs' presentation showed true multitasking, so the OS supports it.

Heck, the biggest complaint over and over was that you couldn't listen to Pandora while doing something else and that was one of the specific examples Jobs used - yet it's STILL not good enough?

Do you Apple-hater's EVER stop whining?

What it means to me is, the applications aren't actually running. So you have to wait for them to reload. Once applications are rewritten to use the new API calls, then they will remain running in the background while you go and do other things.

That's apparently true. However, Pandora said it took hardly any time at all for them to add the appropriate calls, so you can expect that apps will take advantage of it fairly quickly - at least those apps where it makes sense.

 

[drewc1138]

Empty space is beautiful. Typographers and designers call it "whitespace", where there is nothing. There needs to be a balance. It's very Zen-like.

This is the problem with a lot of websites. Everything crammed together. Nowhere to rest the eyes.

Exactly.

Non-lock-screen wallpapers were one of the first reasons that I jailbroke my iPhone...and one of the first things I dropped. On a screen the size of the iPhone's, anything beyond a somewhat plain, dark background is gaudy and distracting. I'd be willing to bet that many users end up going back to the standard black background.

Am I the only one who was beyond underwhelmed by this keynote? I mean, the things that they've done from a technical standpoint are pretty amazing, but graphically, the design of the trays is very...clunky, I guess. Very un-Apple, IMHO.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

It is true that Grand Central Dispatch can leverage multiple CPU cores, but the PRIMARY use of it is to leverage the much more plentiful *GPU cores*, which are already present on both the iPhone and the iPad.

Just as an example, I have the lowest end GPU supported by GCD in my MBP - an 8600GT. But it's 32 wimpy cores have twice the net GCD performance of the 16 SIMD lanes on my Core2Duo.

That's what's so wonderful about these new technologies - they make SIMD multicore programming and GPU programming hte same.

Not correct.

Grand Central dispatch is the system-wide parallel programming/concurrency model for multiple CPU cores and multiple threads per app, per core. It's the kernel based thread pool manager for all applications extended to use it. It doesn't use the GPU to crunch and use blocks to manage threads via the GPU.


OpenCL is both CPU and GPGPU core agnostic and by nature is massively parallel where those dozens to hundreds of GPU cores/streams can be leveraged in conjunction with OpenGL. Grand Central working in conjunction with OpenCL is a one two punch, but serve as different tools to solve different problem sets.

 

[MacTheSpoon]

Holy hell. That is an incredibly non-intuitive way to implement app switching and folder creation.

The average person is going to have no idea pressing the home button twice will show open applications. Nor will they realize they can drag one icon on top of the other to make a folder... if they even figure out that pressing and holding an icon will make it moveable in the first place.

The more features that get added to this OS, the less usable it's becoming. My friend had no idea, for instance, that if he held down his finger he would get a magnifying glass and the ability to reposition his cursor... not to mention cut and paste.

Multitouch is nice, but secret gestures are not user-friendly. Where is that vaunted Apple UI design?

 

[justinfreid]

Uhhh... I can't think of a single reason why Apple's implementation of multitasking won't work perfectly for 99.9% of people. It does background music, GPS, etc. I mean, I am not trying to render a 3D model on my device here. Plus, app switching will be incredibly fast on a 3GS, iPad, and new devices.

I just don't understand your complaint AT ALL. The "true multitasking" arguments that many people have just don't use any consumer-based logic. They are 100% geek and technical arguments that don't matter to real-world people.

E

Uhhh... it's true... I am a fake-world person.
I can think of a lot of reasons! Due to the nature of the "state save" method I was referring to, upon returning to many apps, they won't be exactly as you left them. They won't just re-render their GUI, they'll have to do a lot of other background work, too. There a drawbacks and benefits to Apple's method, I was explaining it, not complaining.

I merely alluded to my real complaint (and this is the big issue): You can't overlay one app over another! Well, I bet you're saying only fake-world geeks want to send or respond to an SMS without minimizing or leaving the app they're in; or change brightness or turn on Bluetooth, on the fly; or Tweet or update Facebook; or get a glimpse of their calendar.
What if merely swiping the status bar at the top allowed this functionality?
Google SBSettings, please, or, look at the Palm Pre's card switching method.

Things are fine for 99% of consumers now, I guess Apple shouldn't have updated the OS at all...