Assessing Key IPhone Features
8. Assessing Key IPhone Features
Here, at last, are the specs for the iPhone either directly from Apple or gleaned from the iPhone itself. Meet me after the table for a discussion of some of these features.
| Height | 4.5 inches (115 mm) |
| Width | 2.4 inches (61 mm) |
| Depth | 0.46 inch (11.6 mm) |
| Weight | 4.8 ounces (135 grams) |
| Memory (flash drive) | 4 or 8 GB |
| Display | 3.5 inch diagonal - multi-touch |
| Resolution | 480 x 320 pixels; resolution 160 dpi |
| Operating System | Apple OS X |
| GMS | Quad-Band (850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz) |
| Wireless Data | Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) |
| Wide Area Network | EDGE |
| Bluetooth | 2.0 + ERD |
| Camera | 2.0 megapixels |
| Image Size | 480 x 640 |
| Audio | 20Hz to 20,000HZ |
| Audio Formats | AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 1, 2 and 3), Apple lossless, AIFF, WAV |
| Video Formats | H.264 (320 x 240 pixels and 640 x 480 pixels both at 30 fps), MPEG-4 (640 x 480 pixels at 300 fps) |
| Battery | Lithium-ion (capacity not stated) |
| Input/Output | Apple 30-pin dock connector; 3.5 mm stereo headphone jack (both on iPhone and dock) |
| Price Hardware | $599 USD (8 GB); $499 USD ( 4 GB) |
| Price Service | Regular voice + $20 for unlimited Internet data access and 200 text messages |
You'll notice that I have included no information about the iPhone's CPU. That's because precious little has been revealed about it. Both Apple and Intel have denied that the CPU giant makes the phone's central processor. There is speculation that the CPU is from Samsung or maybe just a set of ASICs designed and built by one company or another. The latter seems unlikely. We're talking about a very fancy operating system and a set of serious and complex applications and utilities. It would take quite a group of geniuses to build a CPU to support them from scratch.
I'm much impressed with the small size of the iPhone. .46 inch is really thin. Though the iPhone is a bit heavier than most mid-sized smartphones, it still feels quite light. When it's in my pocket, I generally don't even think about it being there.
Those used to iPods with 4 or 8 GB of memory will probably sail right over this spec. But you should compare this amount of memory to the memory in most smartphones, 32 or 64 MB. The important point is that all this memory is available to all iPhone applications. I'm always running out of memory on my Blackberry Pearl. When I first got the Pearl I tried downloading some maps. The phone was out of memory long before the first map was loaded. Now, email regularly fills the Pearl to capacity and the earliest messages are automatically deleted. Who needs that?
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