According to two people with knowledge of the inner workings of a coming iteration of the Apple iPhone — although not necessarily the next one — a chip made by Qualcomm for the phone’s processor will also include near-field communication technology, known as N.F.C. This technology enables short-range wireless communications between the phone and an N.F.C reader, and can be used to make mobile payments. It is unclear which version of an iPhone this technology would be built into.
One person familiar with the new Apple feature said the phone’s credit card information would be tied to information currently used on iTunes, which would make it simple for customers to set up the new mobile payment method on the iPhone.
This will be most convenient but the thought of losing my iPhone…
The screen was a major highlight for us. Its vivid, punchy colors remain faithful even at oblique viewing angles and the pixel density of 800 x 480 dots within a 4-inch diagonal feels just sumptuous. In day-to-day use, you’ll struggle mightily to tell a difference between this and Apple’s Retina Display or Samsung’s Super AMOLED stuff, the pair of whom represent the supreme panel technologies of our day.
I don’t think I’ll be struggling much at all to tell the 40% difference in resolution between the 233-ppi 4-inch HTC Incredible S and the 326-ppi 3.5-inch iPhone 4 Retina Display. The Super AMOLED stuff, on the other hand, could be a struggle.
Chris Ziegler at Engadget:
Well, that’s where the HD7S comes into play: the “S” in the name presumably stands for Super LCD, the newer type of display that HTC’s been using on recent 4.3-inch models like the Thunderbolt. It’s quite pretty, but otherwise, it’s the same HD7 as usual — and really, considering how nice this hardware is, that’s just alright by us.
Vlad Savov reviewed the non-Super HD7 back in October and noted narrow viewing angles and poor color reproduction. My response back then:
Big display and you’d think HTC would have focused on that display a bit.
I guess HTC has with the new HD7S.
It’s not just a Powermat killer. It could potentially kill all chargers for mobile gadgets. Tonight we had a chance to get a demo of Wysips breakthrough technology, which layers a thin, transparent photovoltaic film on top of a phone’s display. This film captures solar energy–or even energy from a nearby light source–so you don’t have to hunt for an outlet by the middle of the day. Maybe not ever again.
According to Wysips it will take six hours of sunlight to completely charge a typical mobile phone battery. Larger batteries in power-hungry smartphones will most likely take longer. I wonder if size can be scaled. I’d like to see Wysip solar films on notebook PCs, too. So when? In about 12 months.
Also known as the Samsung Galaxy Player 5, with a 5-inch display.
Apple’s apparent focus on software in its WWDC announcement backs up what my own sources are saying about the annual conference. That is, expect a software show in 2011, not a hardware event.
I was expecting the next iPhone to be announced in the middle of this year. So were many others. I wasn’t expecting a completely revamped iPhone 5. Instead I’ve written that it would most likely be a speed bump incorporating Apple’s new A5 chip into the same industrial design with the name iPhone 4S.
But maybe Apple is waiting as it often does, for technology or something else to be ready for its next iPhone. If Apple decides not to unveil its next iPhone during WWDC 2011 that can possibly mean that Apple wants to wait for AT&T.
It isn’t too difficult to see that the next jump in data connectivity for smartphones is LTE. Verizon is ahead of the competition and AT&T is following from way behind. Three extra months for AT&T would allow the carrier to build up a larger more palpable LTE network and allow Apple to unveil an iPhone that has LTE capability and expect brisk sales on both AT&T and Verizon. Why would Apple wait for AT&T?
Sales of the Verizon iPhone 4 has been strong but not stratospheric. At best the demand for the CDMA iPhone 4 is on par with the GSM version. One aspect of the CDMA iPhone 4 that gets little attention is Verizon itself. Personally I don’t trust Verizon to do what is right for the customer and its backend accounting system seems to be light years behind AT&T’s. Does that mean I trust AT&T? No, I don’t trust either, but I trust Verizon much less. This stems from having experienced both Verizon and AT&T for several years and I can tell you AT&T is more straight forward. Verizon, on the other hand, has only one goal in mind: do everything to maximize revenue per user. They will always up-sell, always pimp overpriced peripherals, always find an angle to get you to sign up for more. Then there are all sorts of accounting errors on your bill, or multiple bills for the same period. I think others get this about Verizon. The other obvious reason is that a lot of iPhone users on AT&T are still stuck with their two-year agreements. Whatever the reason sales of the iPhone 4 for Verizon haven’t been stellar.
The bottom line is that Apple needs both Verizon and AT&T to successfully launch the next iPhone. I think it would be beneficial to Apple if the iPhone was available on T-Mobile and Sprint, too. In the case of the iPhone more competition is better. Think of the additional 2GB of data for tethering offered by AT&T. Would that have happened if the iPhone 4 was still an exclusive? The extra 1000 minutes? Might not be directly related, but somehow I think it is. More competition is good for us iPhone customers.
So Apple needs AT&T to have some semblance of a LTE network in the US if the company wants to announce the next iPhone with LTE capability. Apple should not and probably will not let Verizon runaway with LTE. That could be the reason why Apple might not unveil the next iPhone at WWDC 2011 and wait until September.
In just four years’ time, says the data, Windows Phone 7 (or whatever version it reaches by then) will have ascended to occupy a fifth of the market and second spot overall behind Android, whose leading position is expected to stabilize somewhere around the 45 percent mark.
The close relationship between Microsoft and Nokia should not be underestimated. Nokia is one helluva smartphone hardware manufacturer and Microsoft has got something quite unique in WP7. I appreciate the generous use of beautiful typography in the UI.
The key to success for any smartphone is the complete package, the complete experience from a tight integration of hardware, OS, and apps. Android will be like Windows with the most deployments but not necessarily with the best experience. WP7 will depend largely on how intimately Microsoft and Nokia play together.
The forecast by IDC is quite optimistic in my opinion but it is anyone’s guess as to what might happen four years from now, and usually these guesses turn out to be thoroughly wrong.
Vlad Savov at Engadget:
When viewed head-on, the Arc’s display is actually above average in terms of contrast and color saturation, but we found ourselves getting annoyed with its dull appearance while looking at it lying on our desk. Viewing comfort at oblique angles hasn’t tended to be a pain point for smartphones so far, but as they grow increasingly larger and fancier, it’s becoming more important.
Sony Ericsson calls this so-so 4.2-inch 16:9 display the Reality Display. Maybe a bit too much reality? The 854×480 pixel format is good enough for a resolution of 233 PPI, but poor off-axis viewing angles just doesn’t cut it in this competitive smartphone industry filled with excellent displays.
Chris Ziegler at Engadget:
One area while the Arrive falls short is the display: at 3.6 inches, it’s a little cramped. It’s not a problem, per se — but when you put it alongside a Samsung Focus or an HTC HD7, the difference becomes noticeable. What bugged us more than the size, though, is the quality; in an age when IPS, SLCD, and Super AMOLED displays are dominating the mid- and high-end smartphone market, the Arrive’s run-of-the-mill TFT LCD falls short. Contrast is noticeably worse than most 2011-spec handsets, and the colors immediately wash out when you tilt it to the side. It’s on par with the Surround, HD7, and EVO 4G in this regard — fine by last year’s standards, not so fine this year, particularly considering that HTC’s been using SLCD in almost everything lately from the Desire up through the Thunderbolt.
In other words the 3.6-inch LCD in the HTC Arrive is too small, comes up short, and should just leave.
Mike Isaac at Wired:
After Texas resident Keith Geissler noticed his new Motorola Atrix wasn’t offering the fast “4G” download and upload speeds that AT&T promised, he filed a complaint to the Better Business Bureau, asking the wireless company to “uncap” his data connection.
AT&T’s response was surprising. While the company assured Geissler it “has not capped the upload speeds on the Atrix,” it did admit that the phone’s HSUPA capability — a key feature in increasing upload speeds on the Atrix as well as the new HTC Inspire 4G smartphone — will not be enabled until a later date.
AT&T markets the Motorola Atrix and the HTC Inspire 4G as 4G smartphones. The problem is that 4G hasn’t been turned on on AT&T’s network. When will it happen? Some time in April. So what do you call a business tactic that says you’ll get one thing and then delivers something else? Fraud.
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