Great moments in reality distortion: the iPhone 4's Retina Display and Winnie the Pooh
By Nilay Patel 
posted June 8th 2010 7:34PM
posted June 8th 2010 7:34PM
posted June 8th 2010 7:34PM
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Amazon Kindle need to had android... to counter apple.
@techlord
Are you referring about Nook?
Got to admit, their high-ranking employees are also great actors.
(Scott Forstall) "I think of my own children, like 7-8 years they'll be off to college. And I can imagine being able to call them, and see them.." :rolleyes
Because video calling has never been invented before? I guess you've never used Skype. Heck, you have it in your Macs. It's called iChat.
@blitzkrieg Yeah, rilly. I hope no one is taking them at face value.
And is it just me, or does Greg Joswiak (:23) sound just like Dethklok's manager Charles Foster Offdensen? He even looks a little like him. :]
@blitzkrieg
Actually, there is a difference and it's called mobility. Granted, Facetime is not really going to be mobile when it is released, but isn't the whole point for them to eventually integrate it with the carriers in the next year or two?
It's a subtle difference but an important one. Imagine all the wives calling their husbands to make sure they didn't stop at the strip club on the way home!
@blitzkrieg
The new iPhone is a great product. As it's predecessors were. But this first time promo videos put it way over the top. The acting simply doesn't seem real. This big eyes, astonished with the wide open mouth, this almost drooling like behavior. It's simply not believable.
To the typography: I didn't realize it in the presentation but this spacings in the text are really not that nice. Apple has to do something about that when they want to bring iBooks to the iPhone.
@Dchu220 Almost every phone supports video calling. It's as easy as any other call. Did you ever see anyone use it?
@Dchu220 I disagree. Video calling has been around for several years now and it has never became an increasing trend. I don't think this will change anything, especially if it's restricted to iPhone 4-to-iPhone 4 only.
@blitzkrieg *it never became. sorry for the typo
@blitzkrieg At original iPhone release:
(Scott Forstall) "I think of my own children, like 10-11 years they'll be off to college. And I can imagine being able to call them, and not have to use that damn telegraph.."
Typical Apple exaggeration, business as usual.
@blitzkrieg The difference is that now instead of his son walking around campus looking like a tool with a laptop in one hand and a webcam in the other hand or just walking around the campus with a laptop (if the webcam is built in), waving it around showing his dad awesome things around the campus... he can just carry around a small and lightweight phone that his dad helped pioneer while flipping back and forth with one finger between himself and the other lens. Man a live it's like everyone is out for blood for Apple just because they are Apple. Just relax people. But I guess they deserve it right? I mean it's not like any other company in the existence of the business has ever been excited about their new products or offerings and touting them as the best regardless of whether or not the competition has a comparable product out. Oh wait... :rolleyes:
@mrt2 So to you, having people around you hear the conversation isn't a big deal? That's the one flaw of video calling. It assumes you're in a quiet, enclosed environment. I'm not it's impossible to make a video call outdoors, in the middle of the city, but it would be somewhat impractical.
Plus, you're totally missing the point. Video calling has been around for quite some time now. This won't change that trend, especially if it can do video calls only with another iPhone 4. By the way, that was a horrible example. Not once in my 5 years in college did I see someone do that, even with a laptop.
video calling to "the world"? .. more like to iphone 4 users
@pedmart i like how apple does their commercials... one could think that these features have never been available to the world...
and the people in them.. always look so high..
oh well, it's good marketing by apple.
@pedmart I my opionion it's pretty darn close to false marketing. I've been doing video calls on my 6110 Navigator for years, and I also heard that the Iphone4 only had video calling over WiFi and not 3G it just ends up being sad.
@hvakrg your opinion is based on? They're bringing video chat to the world, not "we have this revolutionary technology never seen before introducing it first"
@MattsZ how is it to the world? is sound universal? if i can make a video call from the iphone 4 to evo 4g, then that gets closer.. or at least let skype do it.. but then it's still not on 3g? .. Gizmodo had an article a while back, on how apple could make video call the standard.. but the way it looks so far.. it's a lousy feature. you are better off using qik
@pedmart
When you're away on business trips you can video chat from your iPhone! Well, assuming your room has WiFi, which is probably like $20 a night...
And I know, that's the hotel racking up the price, not Apple or AT&T, but still...only being able to do it over WiFi kind of kills it for me.
@mr88 You could always just jailbreak it and use 3G unrestrictor
@Snoboarder2k6
nah you cant because you have to initiate a call
its not like an app
you actually have to call the persona and then hit the video chat button
@pedmart
Didn't you get the memo?
Anyone without an iphone 4 is not worthy of being considered a citizen of the world
@pedmart
Ironically that's the reason I hate their commercials.
@pedmart: To Apple's benefit, they are releasing the protocol for FaceTime to the public domain, making it available to anyone. Don't hate Apple just to be "cool"; do some basic research first.
Oh Nilay, I think you just pissed off a million Apple fanboys
*runs and hides*
@N900 Yeah, trying to say Apple is distorting reality by justifying text is not a strong argument. I'd prefer this over the alternative.
I don't get it...what's wrong with it?
@StPaddy81 Look at the spacing of letters... It is like person writing it kept falling asleep on space bar.. Point is much more information could be on that page.
@Dking7 Yep. For some reason iBooks, and I think that the Kindle app does this as well, spaces words out on a page in newspaper column style, with variable spacing between words in order to be both left and right justified.
While fine as an option, I would much prefer reading something that is left justified only, with a ragged right edge.
@Dking7 Looks to me like it's justified text.
@Dking7
This is a fucking kids book, OF COURSE THERE IS GOING TO BE MORE SPACE BETWEEN THE FUCKING LETTERS.
God dammit Engadget has turned you all into a bunch of negative thinkers, whos main goal toward a good device is to find the negative and exploit it until the world believes you all.
DIE
KTHNXBAY
@Dking7 It just depends upon the text size you choose. It could be the same way on the iPad.
@Technologeee What are you a child? They pointed out something ironic the only one thinking negatively about it is you... Especially when someone says something is amazing in an ad and just the opposite happens, they deserve to be critiqued
@Technologeee *words* between the *words*, simple typo people, no need to get all uptight. lol
@patp
Forstall is talking about the retina display. When he says "the text is just perfect," he's talking about the visual appearance of the fonts. Khoi Vinh is talking about text layout, which is a totally different sense of the word "text."
It may be a little ironic, but not in the "OOOOH YER BUSTED!" kind of way it's being presented.
@eyerot you know what I mean.... It's ironic I dont find it to be that ironic but just a little. I don't find a need for a post on engadget about it, but w/e not my site I think any bad news on apple is blown up or good new's for that matter. Good product none the less people just need to chill and be logical and composed about it....which is far to much to ask for but w/e.
@patp
Couldn't agree more.
@Stetrain : Err, most books have justified text :/
@Picklesworth
Yeah, but they also have a page width / text size ratio that makes it look ok. When you justify text in a too-narrow layout, the spacing gets wonky.
It's not a big deal.
@StPaddy81 Sigh... you might want to read the actual *post* this article is linked to before commenting. The post by Khoi talked about the iPhone OS failing, and continuing to fail in the typography department by making some really horrible design and engineering choices. Remember that Apple is suppose to be *the* company when it comes to industrial and software design, yet continuously ignored typography in their software since the OSX era.
This, he says, continues today, with iOS - yet the promotional video tells us that the text on the iPhone 4 is 'perfect', while showing a less-than-perfect typeset text. From the post -
"Forstall is quite literally claiming perfection while a hand model holds up this terrible example of everything that’s wrong with Apple’s commitment to typography."
Basically, Apple falling into their own reality distortion field.
As to how un-perfect the text is, well isn't it obvious. The spacing between the words are ridiculously uneven. You should *never* justify text at that size, and you should never justify text without hyphenation, unless you want something like what is shown on the picture above.
@IshimaruKenta
Agreed. Align left would fix those rivers.
@eyerot
True, but you're still back to this:
It's a mobile device.
You only get a certain amount of real estate to work with and still keep the text at a size that's easily readable (which is critical for reading e-books). I've seen this happen on the kindle and other e readers as well.
In my opinion, I see nothing wrong with the video. They show text that is easy on the eyes and is rendered crisp and clear.
And unless apple is the one producing the books, it's ludicrous for people to say that it's their responsibility to make them "right". I guess that mean's safari should make every website look great too right?
The only reason this looks "bad" is because theres not as much text on the screen as you normally see on a page. If you don't believe me, then look at this image and try to argue the difference:
http://www.organized-concepts.com/images/portfolio_book_big.gif
Lol.
Haven't heard about the infamous RDF in a while.. It's probably what made switching to AT&T look like a good idea.
It's not Apple, who makes all the noise about the retina display. It's you, engadget! You're just playing their game continuing to post free Apple ads in marginal news like this one. Unless they pay you, that would be another case.
@Furret so what are you providing us by posting this twice, hun?
@Furret i think microsoft will be out of advertising problems just if they buy weblog inc,and that retina display is iphone disadvantage,they haven't any other option so they did the wrong thing. and media's are all under the hype
I don't understand. What is poorly layed out? Or what is being showed here that makes the text unreadable?
@emax
Its the fact that you can actually see the pixels on the new retina display, the one that Apple said is impossible for the human eye to notice.
Obviously this isnt a big deal, but then again, this is Engadget.
@Technologeee How do you know you're not just seeing the pixels in the video you're watching? Until you get one of these things in your hand I wouldn't critique the merits of the display. What do you think… Apple is lying about the specs? Come on.
"And because it's so mobile with your phone, you'll be able to chat, anywhere there's Wi-fi"
I lol'd
@Processing Yes, that definitely is to lol