The widescreen iPhone -- not so widescreen
By Thomas Ricker 
posted January 17th 2007 8:15AM
posted January 17th 2007 8:15AM
You know how Steve Jobs and Apple like to boast of the iPhone's ability to function as a "widescreen iPod?" Well, anyone who sat in Moscone Center to witness the holy unveiling surely noticed the screen cropping (letterboxing) that occurred when Steve played Pirates of the Carribean. That's because the iPhone isn't "widescreen" as the term is customarily understood outside of the reality distortion field -- it is not a 1.78:1 (16x9) aspect ratio. Rather, the display utilizes a 1.5:1 aspect ratio. That puts the iPhone somewhere in the proprietary zone between the NTSC or PAL television standard 1.33:1 (4x3) and a proper widescreen 1.78:1 (16x9) aspect ratio like that thrown off Apple's new Apple TV. As demonstrated during the Jobsnote, true widescreen videos can be zoomed to fill the iPhone's screen but only at the expense of cropping the left and right-hand side video. Will this, uh, clarification or other nits prevent the first batch from selling out? Oh hells no. But at least now you know the truth.
Engadget fails to do it's research again.. How pathetic! Clearly this movie has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Check its stats on Amazon.com.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pirates-Caribbean-Curse-Black-Pearl/dp/B00008KDHH
Nobody sells a portable device with such a screen aspect. And what a waste of space it would be anyways to have such a narrow verticle field of view. Thomas Ricker has iPhone envy is about what this translates to.
Wooooooow, Steve Job's nerd army is out in force...
@Nick
"1. ...I dont see why they would charge more for phone and internet service for iPhones than the Blackjack..."
If they planned to charge the same why didn't they just come out and say so? According to them the rate plans are to be announced at a later date. The URL at your request...
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/10/cingular-kicking-rear-and-taking-names-for-iphone/
which to me says they'll be a little different/higher! Offering the current data plan rates for the iphone would be a selling point, the fact that no pricing has been announced speaks volumes.
"2. Last time i checked Cingular only does 2 year contracts. New Hi-Tech phones never come out as pay as you go...and very few carriers offer 1 year contracts (another reason i like Tmobile)."
As a proud owner of a Cingular ONE YEAR CONTRACT you're wrong. All carriers I have ever dealt with have one year contracts (cingular, Verizon, Alltel) They are located in the fine print or not advertised at all. You have to ask for a one year deal, the caveat is you pay $50-$100 more for yor phone.
"3. Umm from what im informed it is the Law that the phone be able to be unlocked, i assume to prevent a monopoly."
The digital rights copyright law you speak of has many, many loopholes that carriers have already begun to get around i.e. the link below.
See "Availability" and "Critical Must Know"
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/10/cingular-kicking-rear-and-taking-names-for-iphone/
did you read the part about only able to work on the cingular network...which means yeah you can unlock it but it'll be USELESS! I have a joke for you, "What is an unlocked phone that can only be used by one carrier called?"...LOCKED!!
Got anymore smart a@@ responses?
Agreed. Almost no wide-screen TV or Gadget is actually movie-widescreen. LCD's and Plasma's can do 16:9, but movies are shot in 2.35:1, so 99% of TV's will show a letterbox on top and bottom unless you crop the sides.
I'm sorry but I don't agree. Widescreen is a specific ratio, a screen not respecting this ratio must not be called widescreen, and i don't see why any portable or mobile based media player cannot respect this ratio, we are not talking about the screen resolution but about the ratio. To have full screen on the iPhone playing a 16:9 or 4:3 movie, you'll have to convert the movie before.
Sorry, but I don't understand why widescreen is supposed to be a specific aspect ratio. Maybe people assume it is, but it isn't true, many of the same people complain that their Cinemascope-filmed movies don't "fit" their widescreen HDTV. Go check out some movie dimensions, the two major movie formats are around 2.35:1 and 1.85:1, and there are several others, I think Cinemascope can be as much as 2.5:1, but 2.35:1 is generally the one that's most accepted.
HDTVs are often 1.77:1. Most "widescreen" computer monitors are 1.6:1, and many portable devices are 1.5:1. If you want to say that widescreen is a specific aspect ratio, then please tell me which one is "truly" widescreen. I really don't think using the common LCD 1.5:1 panels disqualifies it from being widescreen, and I think Palm and other PDA makers have promoted them as such. I don't know of any movie that was made to these "device widescreen" aspect ratios before the devices of that size existed.
I have to say, people are idiots when it comes to this 'widescreen' stuff. Even on a 16:9 screen you would have black bars with most movies. Get over the 16:9 fetish. These are PORTABLE devices, not GD movie theaters. If Apple had put a 16:9 screen in, either the screen would be overall smaller or the device would be taller, and we'd still see Wil O'Neal retards complaining about it.
The whole tone of this story is rubbish and I'd call out engadget (who usually do a very fine job) as this is a poor show and the shots are completly misleading. They're not only different aspect ratios but different shots as well. If you're going to do a story like this take some time and show us how much we'll be missing on the iphone's screen compared with a 16:9 widescreen by means of an overlaid rectangle with a 16:9 ratio. Ten minutes in photoshop could have done that.
Yeah right !! Who cares if the actors are all fat or all skiny ?? Who cares if you get black bars on top and on bottom of the screen ?? And also, who cares if you get the left side and right side cropted ?? Well, I would say me. That's why I usually convert my movies before putting them on my Qtek for viewing when they are not in the right format. And also, when I view 16:9 movies on my widescreen TV, I don't have these ratio problems. Again, nobody's perfect, but don't claim what no portable device claimed until now.
Why would you want to watch a movie on such a small screen??
"Why would you want to watch a movie on such a small screen?"
Hundreds of thousands of people communte on public transportation every day, millions will fly. On my last trip I saw 4 movies on my son's PSP. It's better than reading the airline magazine. Believe me many people will watch the iphone.
Go watch the keynote again. Yes, Steve said it was a "widescreen" iPod. He didn't say it was 16:9. during the keynote where he showed Pirates, he switched it from its native mode to letterboxed mode.
Thanks a lot Sherlock for that un-noticable fact. I suspected it would not be just like watching a movie in the theater for which I paid 10 bucks, but I just couldn't prove it. NOW... the world will know.
This story is stupid. We don't need Engadget to tell us what's a wide screen. The iPhone screen is much wider than on other portable players, and it is widescreen. If you don't think this is wide enough for you to play those 2.35:1 movies, then you have no other choice. My 32" LCD TV shows most of the movies with black bars because they are just too wide.
I hope Engadget will stop making stupid comments about iPhone just to drive traffic.
I don't see why this is news. This was shown in the keynote, which was the most easily accessible Macworld keynote ever. Like always, it was available on the Apple website, as well as the first time (I think) as a video podcast which can be downloaded for free from the iTS. On the Apple website, there is also a stream for just the introduction (which is basically the whole keynote, anyway). Any one who is this interested in the iPhone should have at least watched the introduction of it.
Apple website (quicktime stream):
http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/j47d52oo/event/
iTS (video podcast):
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=212293773
C'mon. How come people are just figuring this out. I saw this in the keynote when Jobs was showing off Pirates, then he zoomed out and I gasped. Its not the end of the world though. Did everyone in the room blackout during the video playback part of the iphone demo? This isn't actually new and Cnet already has the on their website.
Can't understand the bashing of the article. The widescreen aspect-ratio is 16:9 or wider for movies and gadgets (like a tv or PMP) and 16:10 for computer monitors. The iPhones aspect ratio is 15:10. So - wider then 4:3 - but not a widescreen as the word is commonly used.
So Apple stretched the truth - but who's surprised? Apple stretch the truth, that's what they are good at. They lost me when they started talking about "the worlds most advanced smartphone" which IMHO is a pure lie.
What is wide?
you guys are effin' ridiculous.
nobody would want a screen on a phone at 16:9!
Yeye, whine down on the iPhone.......
You said something bad about Apple ?
Aren't you afraid of getting SUED by Apple ?
Some Bloggers got really big trouble in the last days. Screw Apple.
I don't think I'd call it a proprietary aspect ratio. 1.5:1 is actually pretty common for PDAs. I think my Tapwave from two or three years ago uses the same resolution and screen size. The same is probably true of the Palm T|X. It's probably using another off-the-shelf panel like most other portable device makers do.
4:3 is standard but appears squarish to must of us but it is inherently widescreen. We just don't think of 4:3 as widescreen because we were trained by tube televisions with curves to think 4:3 is square when it is not. However even this is apparent when you look at old arcade machines like pac-man where the tube is turned to appear taller. The tubes in those arccade machines are not taller, they are 4:3 turned sideways! (I guess that would make it 3:4?) Remember these are the same screens at the same aspect ratio we had been looking at for most of our lives.
With that said I agree with the industry at large that any screen significantly wider than it is tall to be widescreen. This would include all the Gamboy Advances, iPod video's, PSP's and Zune's of the world. The iPhone is no different.
Since I've converted most of my media to 480x272 (same size and "16x9" ratio as the PSP; Archos 404, 504 and 604; etc.) and the iPhone is 480x320, I don't see how this creates any sort of an issue other than I'll have additional space at the top and/or bottom of the screen. So, what's all the fuss about?
Bwahahahah.....Steve Jobs just took a shit on y'all apple fan boys....AND YOU LOVE IT!
Why does everyone complain about the iPhone news? Just skip over the news you dont want to read. Get Firefox and put the RSS feed in you bookmarks toolbar, then only click on the articles that are of interest to you.
Dude, you're full of shit.
There's no such thing as universal widescreen standard.
My monitor is 1.6:1. My digital camera is 3:2. Some movies are 1.85:1. Others are 2.35:1. etc.
For any ratio, there will be some movie that won't play right.
Anything that's more than 4:3 _is_ widescreen.
that movie is in theatrical widescreen, which is wider than 16:9....geez
thuzzles and several others are right.
that movie is Cinemascope 2.35:1 aspect. The vast majority of movies are 1.85:1. That is a lot closer to the 1.78:1 aspect ratio of widescreen (16:9) TV's. So even on a HD mastering of a 1.85:1 movie you're losing a bit off the sides as they only seem to
be "letterboxing" Cinemascope" films.
It is a tad baffling that they chose this 1.5:1 ratio for the iPhone screen, but with a 1.85:1 movie
it won't be as noticeable.
Did you really expect the iPhone screen to have a Cinemascope aspect ratio screen? I'm pretty sure no such
monitor even exists!
Using that graphic is just troll baiting.
Who cares?
Everyone knows this phone is gonna gonna bomb.
on a side note: The Zune 2 is reportedly going to be amazing...I'm still in the market for a good mp3 player...so I'm waiting for the Zune 2.
Engadget -- not so aware of what is widescreen.
Assuming you have a plasma or LCD widescreen HD TV, do you see black bars when you watch Pirates of the Caribbean (or any other big budget Hollywood movie)?
Yes? But your HD screen is widescreen isn't it? Maybe it shouldn't be. So, should we redefine widescreen as having an aspect ratio of 2.35:1?
While most newer TVs are usually 16:9 (1.78:1), computer displays vary greatly. Many widescreen laptops are 1.5 to 1.6.
Conventionally, the term "widescreen" on a laptop refers to an aspect ratio wider than 4:3 (1.33:1).
The iPhone, being more a computer than a plasma, fits the latter definition. I don't see why this is a story.
Engadget -- not so aware of what is widescreen.
Assuming you have a plasma or LCD widescreen HD TV, do you see black bars when you watch Pirates of the Caribbean (or any other big budget Hollywood movie)?
Yes? But your HD screen is widescreen isn't it? Maybe it shouldn't be. So, should we redefine widescreen as having an aspect ratio of 2.35:1?
While most newer TVs are usually 16:9 (1.78:1), computer displays vary greatly. Many widescreen laptops are 1.5 to 1.6.
Conventionally, the term "widescreen" on a laptop refers to an aspect ratio wider than 4:3 (1.33:1).
The iPhone, being more a computer than a plasma, fits the latter definition. I don't see why this is a story.
Engadget writers need to go to film school, or get a clue about lenses.
1.85:1 - shot on standard 16 - 35mm film and cropped
2.5:1 - animorphic, image is "squished" to a square via a lens onto 35 mm film. When you see lens flairs (helicopter lights are ideal) they're oblong or oval - not true circles - because of the "compression" to a square 35mm film then expanding out via another lens for projection.
And yeah 16:9 DOES NOT EQUAL Animorphic.
For a bunch of geeks you all seem to be lacking simple spatial-observation powers.
The iPhone is a widescreen device. Pirates was shot in Cinema Wide which is wider than 16:9 so yes it is a widescreen display
I heard Zune completed bombed, captured like what, 2% market share? iPod has over 70% market share. Good luck with Zune 2, lol.
Michael
It's called Cinemascope. The extra wide screen format the studios concocted to battle the advent of television along with VistaVision.
Widescreen does NOT equal 16:9. Widescreen is a term used for displays that are wider then 4:3.
some laptop monitors are advertised as widescreen but they're not 16:9.
portable dvd players have non 16:9 'widescreen' monitors.
iPhone IS widescreen because it is wider then 4:3.
And a lot of movies these days aren't 16:9 either, even the example of 'pirates' is NOT 16:9, it's even wider.
1. If "locked" phones are illegal, as I read earlier, how come companies such as "tracfone" can release prepaid phones, and the like, that most certainly can't be re-initiated into a real network. Admittedly there might be different rules for pre-paid services... but there's no blanket law against all phone locking.
2. I don't have much to say about it except I tend to agree more with those who maintain that "widescreen" doesn't imply a specific number-by-number ratio... it just means it beats a standard screen by some measure, whatever that happens to be.
Besides, you get used to the letterboxing or the cropping or whatever once you've watched for 5 minutes anyway, you never think about it again once the initial aggravation is over.
Maybe they did goof up making their screen. But it's still one heck of a phone considering all the software functions it's capable of... it doesn't deserve extra criticism just b/c it's an Apple. I mean, other companies have made bad calls before.
that screen looks wider than MY cellphone screen. and my ipods screen.
hell i had a widescreen projection tv that still played widescreen movies with a letterbox back in two oh oh two.
so what the hell are you talking about, sir?