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iPhone Video Recording Interface, Digital Compass, Voice Control and Auto-Focus Camera

PolySciSurfer said:
Wow, could apple be any lamer with this? My blackberry pearl has been doing video recording for 3 years. Get with it apple, and stop handicapping your devices.

storyofstuff.com
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So they shouldn't add it because Pearl or whatever has it? 🙄
 
True that ...

Cander said:
Oh wonderful. Then we get people shoving their iPhone in their pants and letting us know the temperature of their balls. 😱
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LOL! It'd make the PhotoSwap app so much more ... poignant, don't you think? 😀

Seriously, I'm thrilled with the Voice Control news! There shouldn't be any reason why THIS can't come bundled with the 3.0 package and work in existing phones. In fact, it's long overdue - up there with Copy/Paste even.

Magnetometer? Um ok ... sure, whatever ... Just give us our TomTom app, thank you very much! 😎
 
this might have been talked about already:

but what if the 3.2MP camera is for the front near the screen and the 5MP is for the back?
 
PolySciSurfer said:
Wow, could apple be any lamer with this? My blackberry pearl has been doing video recording for 3 years. Get with it apple, and stop handicapping your devices.

storyofstuff.com
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so with this logic BB should recall/stop making any device that has a cruddy web browser, no HTML email etc etc
 
For what it's worth, MacEnstein has is wondering if the lack of a better camera in the original iPhone and iPhone 3g was due to Apple forcing an upgrade path...

As a happy jailbroken iPhone user, I have found that Cycorder works quite well for recording video on the iPhone, as does Qik. I see no technological reason why Apple could not support video recording on the current crop of iPhones (albeit perhaps at a lower frame rate), yet something inside tells me Apple’s decision to include a crap camera for as long as possible was a calculated move to help justify its “upgrade path”. Just as GPS was a big enough hardware specific upgrade to convince many 1st gen iPhone users to upgrade, I wonder if including one of the lowest res cameras found in any mobile phone for TWO hardware generations was not deliberately intended to add perceived value to the next iPhone revision.
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Magnetometer would be great

Luke1robb said:
You are kidding right? What exactly would a magnetometer do other than act as a compass? It seems like Apple would want more out of something like that? Ideas? Improved GPS or Turn-by-turn?
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A magnetometer is actually a pretty useful addition. One of the aspects that helps app developers make such intuitive applications is how many ways the iPhone can be "aware" of it's current state. With an accelerometer and GPS it "knows" where it is geographically and spatially, now with the addition of a magnetometer it will have a MUCH more precise lock on that location. Imagine your iPhone siting on a table, if you tip it up or down by picking up one end or the other it can sense this. If you were to spin it like the hand on a clock, it currently has no way of knowing.

The benefits in GPS navigation are obvious, it will help know which way you're pointed. But the benefits in other apps are endless, it will help developers create apps that know EXACTLY how you're holding the phone and respond accordingly. I can't wait to see the creative ways this will be implemented.
 
I like these features... but I don't want to hear about too many more until I hear about amazing new battery technologies that will let you use your phone (and all these features) on the go for at least 8 hours.
 
I think they will announce the iPhone 3.0 Software at the WWDC, and let users download it for existing iPhones / iPod Touch's.
They will most probably reveal the new iPhone too, but delay it's release by a month or so into July.
 
Thank God. Now we can stop hearing complaints about how the iPhone doesn't record video and start hearing complaints about the video quality.
 
I'm sure after the new iPhone comes out this summer, people will be complaining about it doesn't have a physical keyboard or something like that. smh!

Its about time Apple implemented these features! Darn. Now, where's my 3rd generation iPhone?. lol.
 
nanvinnie said:
i agree... video recording, better image quality, higher mega pixels and so on have been standard on a lot of cheaper phones for quite sometime... but it's the package that apple brings together.

no other phone combines such an array of technologies and coolness together like apple...
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Exactly! This is what we should be focused on. Not the fact that other devices have all of this. Excellent point. 😀
 
zombitronic said:
Augmented reality. Virtual data (text, images, 3D) overlaid onto reality viewed through a camera and display. Calculated by combining GPS and compass data. It'll be so sci-fi when it's evolved. NVIDIA's CEO was asked where he thinks the future of video devices will take us. His answer was augmented reality.
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That would be unbelievable.
I have to agree with him.

ThE.MeSsEnGeR said:
OMG!!! if this only Beta 2...!!! what would it be with the FULLY-SIZED OS 3!?!?!?
let alone the actual hardware update!!!
I am sooooooo camping outside the apple store a week before they launch the new iphone!! hehehhehe....😀
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Well, I really want it, but I'm gonna have to wait for the unlock for it to come out. I'm planning on using it on T-Mobile. 😀

Stormbringer said:
You mean this kind of stuff in real-time?

augmented_reality.jpg


It's cool, but I don't think it's very handy to be walking with your iPhone in front of you all the time. This is great in HUD-sunglasses, I wonder when that'll be available.

By the way, I don't think the iPhone will have the power to do this kind of stuff in real-time.
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It's actually not that hard to do it in real time, if you have a decent stereo camera and a compass. I don't think that much processing power would be required. Especially when the iPhones have multi-cored CPUs.
Stormbringer said:
By the way, I hope they will add a physical camera-key. Auto-focus by a touch screen will be a pain in the ass!

Besides the fact that a key on the side of the phone is a better position than on the front, and you'll be less shaky when taking a picture.
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Yah, but it would detract from the sexiness of the device.
MrCrowbar said:
Would be cool if the video compression rate would automatically go up if the accelerometer feels much movement. This way, if you do quick turns or pans, the recording bitrate could go up. Even on high end consumer cameras, you notice the artifacts on this kind of motion.

Modern video compression works by having a keyframe (a fully stored picture) followed by frames where only the differences to the keyframe and the movement and color shift of previous frames are stored. This means if your camera is on a tripod and only a small object on the video is moving, you can set the compression very high. Panning on zooming is bad here, because there's new objects coming into view that haven't been there in the keyframe. Hard cuts actually look terrible if the first image after the cut isn't a keyframe.
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That would be excellent, and IMO, more practical than augmented reality.
williedigital said:
Funny thing is, that's essentially real life. Signs in front of stores and arrows painted on the roadway have the exact same effect. You're just overlaying a bitmap on top of it.
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Well, when you're new to someplace, it could be very useful.
ivladster said:
I wonder why apple doesn't want to make its own Turn-by-Turn App.
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Apple's not going to make it, because they will need to use maps. Considering that Apple doesn't own any of these maps, they would have to make deals with other companies, such as Google.
 
nfl46 said:
I'm sure after the new iPhone comes out this summer, people will be complaining about it doesn't have a physical keyboard or something like that. smh!

Its about time Apple implemented these features! Darn. Now, where's my 3rd generation iPhone?. lol.
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I'm positive that they're not going to implement a physical keyboard. This is what sets them apart from other phone companies.
 
utahnguy said:
A magnetometer is actually a pretty useful addition. One of the aspects that helps app developers make such intuitive applications is how many ways the iPhone can be "aware" of it's current state. With an accelerometer and GPS it "knows" where it is geographically and spatially, now with the addition of a magnetometer it will have a MUCH more precise lock on that location. Imagine your iPhone siting on a table, if you tip it up or down by picking up one end or the other it can sense this. If you were to spin it like the hand on a clock, it currently has no way of knowing.

The benefits in GPS navigation are obvious, it will help know which way you're pointed. But the benefits in other apps are endless, it will help developers create apps that know EXACTLY how you're holding the phone and respond accordingly. I can't wait to see the creative ways this will be implemented.
Click to expand...

A turning game!
Turn towards "Chicago".
400 points!
The faster you do it, the more points you get!
 
dvdhsu said:
A turning game!
Turn towards "Chicago".
400 points!
The faster you do it, the more points you get!
Click to expand...

I was thinking of something where you face other iphone users over long distances... Think about something like Loopt, but it tells you what direction to face to achieve line of sight. It could also be useful while camping... quickly you could determine, "hey, John is 300 yards that way!".
 
This is all super awesome news. The only thing that concerns me is that the camera app doesn't seem to get some extra controls which it could do with, and there's no sign of a flash toggle... Anyway, no need to panic too much just yet. And auto-focus and a magnetometer will be great.

Right now someone in Apple who figured no one would ever find this stuff in the beta is losing a bet... 🙂

Phazer
 
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