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jsmith1

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 6, 2010
687
598
Long time Nokia unlocked phone user (last one being N8-great phone by the way), and user of the iPad 1 for that last year and half(whenever it came out)and being tired of having ipad and phone on different OS's and since the ipad wasn't going away(can't wait for ipad 3) I finally got the iPhone 4s.

So far so good as far as having 2 devices being able to share much easier, even though I'm having to learn quite a few things, iphone is not bad although I wish the screen was a little bigger as I thought any new phone I got would be 4".

I did lose my unlimited data plan (dumbphone) and $5 200 text plan and had to sign a new 2 year as I've been off contract for quite a while now. My bill did go up and only getting 2gb plan, although I want to check with the ppl here on trying to get the unlimited plan hack(?) if it's not to late.

I was really concerned with battery life and sure enough it didn't disappoint by draining rather quickly, especially when I was streaming for a couple of hours. What I did was pick up the Mophie juice pak which has really helped(and a really cool product) making it through the day without charging is no problem now.

All in all seems to be a good decision and I've got a lot to learn with it, so might have to seek the experts help from time to time.:)
 
Coming from a Droid X that I moded and fidgeted with daily to obsession, I really like the locked down aspect of the iPhone simply becuase it curbs my OCD a bit. I just want to use it and not spend countless hours rooting, roming, etc.
 
The iPhone is not something you "cave in" for. It is a huge jump up from your previous phone. So if were to go from an iPhone 4s to a Nokia then you would be caving in.
 
The iPhone is not something you "cave in" for. It is a huge jump up from your previous phone. So if were to go from an iPhone 4s to a Nokia then you would be caving in.

I think your not interpreting his meaning of his 'caving in'. In the context he means this is a good thing. I caved in and bought a Porche, etc.
 
The iPhone is not something you "cave in" for. It is a huge jump up from your previous phone. So if were to go from an iPhone 4s to a Nokia then you would be caving in.

No, it was a huge change, not a huge jump, hence the long delay, but whatever, is that the only think you got from that post?
 
No, it was a huge change, not a huge jump, hence the long delay, but whatever, is that the only think you got from that post?

Don't bother with that argument.

Glad you like the phone. I was a die hard Android user but I am really liking the 4S. Camera, Graphics, just general high polish on apps, UI, etc. Great phone.
 
Don't bother with that argument.

Glad you like the phone. I was a die hard Android user but I am really liking the 4S. Camera, Graphics, just general high polish on apps, UI, etc. Great phone.

Thanks, so far so good, one thing that is driving me crazy though, is not have the arrow keys on the keyboard like my other phones.

Drove me crazy with iPad as well but having a bigger screen was smoother to work around.

Seems strange not to have arrow keys on the keyboard.

----------

Congratulations and welcome aboard. I'm sure you'll find a lot of ways to use the interconnection of the iPhone and iPad.

I give full credit to the iPad for swaying me to the finally getting the iPhone, as the iPad isn't going anywhere and when I finally made the the decision that I was getting the iPad 3 as soon as it came out, I knew it was time to go ahead and get the iPhone as well.
 
Android is to messy, has problems, and other buggy things.

Android standby couldn't even last a day for me (xperia x10)
 
Coming from a Droid X that I moded and fidgeted with daily to obsession, I really like the locked down aspect of the iPhone simply becuase it curbs my OCD a bit. I just want to use it and not spend countless hours rooting, roming, etc.

THIS. I can't tell you how many ROMS and tweaks I went through in the past 2 years before I got my iPhone... Almost a GODSEND lol
 
Android is to messy, has problems, and other buggy things.

Android standby couldn't even last a day for me (xperia x10)

I was tempted to by a unlocked Android phone and almost went with the new arc s but once the decision to go with next gen iPad, all thoughts went away on that.

I actually really like the unlocked Nokia phones, but alas Symbian just fell to far behind for what I wanted.
 
Was shooting some video yesterday for the first time with this phone that came out pretty good.

Couldn't find anywhere to zoom while shooting video, is this not a feature with video?

If so, I hope there are not to many features that I was taking for granted on my other phones that are not here.

Has this been something that has been discussed as an update or no big deal with other users?
 
No zoom on video. You wouldn't want it anyhow as it would be digital. The 4S has a sort of image stabilization and does so by cropping the outer edges of the video-does a good job IMO- and this is probably why they eliminated the zoom.
 
No zoom on video. You wouldn't want it anyhow as it would be digital. The 4S has a sort of image stabilization and does so by cropping the outer edges of the video-does a good job IMO- and this is probably why they eliminated the zoom.


Gotcha
 
Well, so far so good with most stuff, I ended up getting a 4s for my gf for christmas.

She had the 3gs so it was a good upgrade, although she did like the form factor of the 3gs's rounded edges to the 4s squarish edges.

Anyone know what a 3gs will go for these days as she isn't going to need anymore.

We did try facetime a couple of times, would be more useful if could use on 3g as well instead of wifi only, not really sure my uses would be very often otherwise.

Am liking icloud with the 2 devices--iPad and iPad, but am still getting used to the overall idea of Apple, with such simple things like wanting to delete a song from the phone but having to go through iTunes to do that, stuff like that.

They are selling like hotcakes though as I had a hard time getting the white 16gb model this last weekend, only in the afternoon when a shipment came in was I able to get one in my area.
 
No zoom on video. You wouldn't want it anyhow as it would be digital. The 4S has a sort of image stabilization and does so by cropping the outer edges of the video-does a good job IMO- and this is probably why they eliminated the zoom.

How would cropping out the edges make it look like there is IS (image stabilizer) on? One would think that if it is that way then the rest of the picture is also shaky. Which in my mind, doesn't make much sense reading your post.

AFAIK the IS is made possible through the gyro sensor and the CPU to process it.


The zoom is never really needed on a digital camera as you can always "zoom" digitally when editing videos or pictures afterwards if that's what one wants. It'll do the exact same thing as cropping a photo.

Well, so far so good with most stuff, I ended up getting a 4s for my gf for christmas.

She had the 3gs so it was a good upgrade, although she did like the form factor of the 3gs's rounded edges to the 4s squarish edges.

Anyone know what a 3gs will go for these days as she isn't going to need anymore.

We did try facetime a couple of times, would be more useful if could use on 3g as well instead of wifi only, not really sure my uses would be very often otherwise.

Am liking icloud with the 2 devices--iPad and iPad, but am still getting used to the overall idea of Apple, with such simple things like wanting to delete a song from the phone but having to go through iTunes to do that, stuff like that.

They are selling like hotcakes though as I had a hard time getting the white 16gb model this last weekend, only in the afternoon when a shipment came in was I able to get one in my area.

Swipe from left to right to get the "delete" button to show on a song in the list of all tunes.. That's how you remove them without using iTunes, always been that way to remove things from pretty much any app or such that has a layout similar to it on iOS.
 
How would cropping out the edges make it look like there is IS (image stabilizer) on? One would think that if it is that way then the rest of the picture is also shaky. Which in my mind, doesn't make much sense reading your post.

AFAIK the IS is made possible through the gyro sensor and the CPU to process it.

Digital Image stabilization like that found in the iPhone 4S usually comes at a price, though. The way it usually works is that the camera crops a smaller portion of the video frame and stabilizes just that portion. As a result, the stabilized footage sometimes doesn't look as crisp and sharp as non-digitally-stabilized footage.
 
Digital Image stabilization like that found in the iPhone 4S usually comes at a price, though. The way it usually works is that the camera crops a smaller portion of the video frame and stabilizes just that portion. As a result, the stabilized footage sometimes doesn't look as crisp and sharp as non-digitally-stabilized footage.

I see, thanks for replying!

Now i am curious on how the stabilizer really works in the iPhone 4S and what the deal is with it so we all know :) I'll see what i can research and i'll edit my post if i find anything that is worth mentioning that may be from a trustworthy source!


EDIT: Found info from appleinsider, but i don't know if they are trustworthy, anyhow i'll quote them which is also from what i've read from several other sites before (thus i mentioned the reason i thought was correct for the IS in the 4S)

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...e_4s_and_its_8mp_camera_s_is_for_shutter.html
The image stabilization functionality is boosted by the gyroscope found in the iPhone 4S.


And i also found another site that pretty much explains what you did which is from tuaw dot com which i never heard off. But here it is:

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/10/14/iphone-4s-video-image-stabilization-in-action/

Do note, however, that the iPhone 4S achieves image stabilization digitally without the use of in-camera optics, so stabilized footage will be slightly zoomed in and cropped compared to non-stabilized footage. However, when your footage is in 1080p, as is the case with footage shot by the iPhone 4S, you really won't notice any zooming or cropping at all.


EDIT2: I seem to find more sites that claim that it is in fact the gyro that stabilizes the image, even wikipedia states it, but wikipedia is for anyone to edit pretty much so i don't give much for that.. Hehe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_4S#Camera
The built-in gyroscope is able to stabilize the camera while recording video.
 
Last edited:
Found this and it makes sense on why it crops-it uses the cropped area as a buffer.

Digital image stabilization
Video image stabilization.ogv
Short video showing image stabilization done purely in software in post processing stage.

Real-time digital image stabilization is used in some video cameras. This technique shifts the electronic image from frame to frame of video, enough to counteract the motion. It uses pixels outside the border of the visible frame to provide a buffer for the motion. This technique reduces distracting vibrations from videos or improves still image quality by allowing one to increase the exposure time without blurring the image. This technique does not affect the noise level of the image, except in the extreme borders when the image is extrapolated.

Unfortunately, many still camera manufacturers market their cameras as having "digital image stabilization", when they really only have a mode with a sub-optimal image exposure time, resulting in pictures with less motion blur, but more noise.[16]

The main disadvantage with this solution is that motion blur from shake under medium to low light conditions will be impossible to correct by the post processing images stabilization system, so in real life this will only work well for short exposure times (daylight).
 
How would cropping out the edges make it look like there is IS (image stabilizer) on? One would think that if it is that way then the rest of the picture is also shaky. Which in my mind, doesn't make much sense reading your post.

AFAIK the IS is made possible through the gyro sensor and the CPU to process it.


The zoom is never really needed on a digital camera as you can always "zoom" digitally when editing videos or pictures afterwards if that's what one wants. It'll do the exact same thing as cropping a photo.



Swipe from left to right to get the "delete" button to show on a song in the list of all tunes.. That's how you remove them without using iTunes, always been that way to remove things from pretty much any app or such that has a layout similar to it on iOS.

Thanks for the tip! I did not know that:)
 
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