iPhone

Why LTE Won’t Dictate a Bigger iPhone Screen

A few days ago David Pogue wrote that if the next iPhone is indeed bigger and comes with a 4-inch screen, it could be out of necessity due to LTE:

I’m guessing that the iPhone’s upsizing will be equally necessary to accommodate a bigger battery, so that Apple can solve the 4G/dead battery issue.

Meaning: We all know that LTE chips drain cell phone batteries → thus the iPhone needs a higher-capacity battery → thus the iPhone needs to be physically bigger → thus, why not slap on a bigger screen while you’re at it?

There are two assumptions about this premise that I don’t like: (1) that Apple won’t find a way to implement LTE without also putting a significantly larger battery into the iPhone; and (2) that Apple would allow LTE implementation to dictate significant hardware design changes, especially changes that affect the screen.

The first may be true, but the second I just don’t see happening.

If we take the new iPad as an example of a Retina display device with LTE, we see that the LTE chip Apple is using in the iPad is nothing compared to the screen’s drain on the battery. Matthew Panzarino wrote in March:

LTE on the new iPad accounts for roughly 10% of the battery’s capacity. The rest of the increase can be attributed to the more powerful processor, screen and bump in RAM. This is remarkable on its own, because its far less than most 4G phones require, indicating that Apple has worked with Qualcomm to intensely tweak the chip for power consumption.

Did you know that if you use the new iPad as an LTE hotspot with the display turned off, the battery will last over 25 hours? As AnandTech pointed out in their iPad 3 review: “If you want to use the new iPad as a personal hotspot, you’ll likely run out of data before you run out of battery life.”

Today’s iPhone already has a battery strong enough to power its Retina screen. And though the next iPhone may indeed have a larger screen, a higher-capacity battery, and LTE connectivity. Assuming that happens, we may never know if LTE forced a bigger phone, or if a bigger phone allowed for LTE. Apple will never say which new component was the “most important” component to the hardware design team. But actually, we do know: it’s the display. It’s always been the display and always will be.

  • Apple, at its heart, is a software company. And, using some text from my iPad 3 review, the other side of the coin to iOS is the Retina display. Meaning, iOS is the software and the screen is the hardware and that’s pretty much it. That is the device. It’s a screen that becomes whatever pixels are lit up underneath.

On a laptop you have three user interface components: the keyboard, the trackpad, and the display where you watch the user interface. On the iPad and iPhone you have one user interface: the screen. And you touch and manipulate and interact with what you see on that screen.

I love the way Ryan Block explained why the new iPad’s Retina display was such a big deal:

The core experience of the iPad, and every tablet for that matter, is the screen. It’s so fundamental that it’s almost completely forgettable. Post-PC devices have absolutely nothing to hide behind. Specs, form-factors, all that stuff melts away in favor of something else that’s much more intangible. When the software provides the metaphor for the device, every tablet lives and dies by the display and what’s on that display.

Ever since 2007, one of the hallmark engineering feats of iOS has been its responsiveness to touch input. When you’re using an iOS app it feels as if you are actually moving the pixels underneath your finger. If that responsiveness matters at all, if iOS matters at all, then so does the quality and realism of the screen itself. The display is the central hardware component.

  • Secondly, of the millions of iPhones that Apple will sell all around the globe, how many will be to people who live in an LTE city? The new iPad’s LTE chip works only with carriers in the US and Canada. There are LTE bands all around the globe that the iPad does not support. While it’s possible the next iPhone will be more versatile in its LTE offerings, and thus be available on more 4G bands than just USA and Canada, it’s no guarantee.

Looking at LTE coverage just in the United States, AT&T has 39 LTE-equipped markets which cover 79 million people (or 23% of the US population), and Verizon has 258 markets covering 200 million people (or 65% of the US population).

My point being: 100-percent of iPhone 5 buyers will use the iPhone by holding it in their hand, touching the screen, and plugging it in to charge. But, for one reason or another, less than 100-percent will be able to connect to an LTE network.

The iPhone’s display is its preeminent hardware feature — everything else is secondary. If the next iPhone has a bigger display it will be because Apple decided bigger is better. As awesome as LTE is, it isn’t awesome enough to be the feature which dictates significant hardware changes to the iPhone.

Why LTE Won’t Dictate a Bigger iPhone Screen

InstaCRT  →

InstaCRT is an iPhone camera filter app unlike any other. From the FAQ:

Q: What’s the difference between InstaCRT and other camera apps such as Hipstamatic or Instagram?

A: Hipstamatic and Instagram and other apps are applying filters to your photos in the software in your camera. InstaCRT is sending your photo to our office in Stockholm where the photo is displayed on a actual physical 1” CRT monitor which is photographed with a digital SLR from which the new photo is sent back to your phone over the internet.

Watch the video to see how the photos taken with the app show up on that miniature monitor in their office. The final results vary based on the time of day and thus the amount of daylight in their office, and the more people are using the app the longer the wait time for your photo to be processed. Here’s some info about how the app and its server-side software were developed.

InstaCRT

Bang On — A Nice Search App  →

A very nice and brand-new search app. Bang On is technically a dedicated DuckDuckGo search app, but it does a lot more than that. What Launch Center is to your iPhone apps, Bang On is to search. You can set site-specific searches (such as Amazon, IMDB, Wikipedia) and app-specific searches (like Pandora, Instagram, Tweetbot) and then save them as custom !bang shortcuts.

I was fortunate enough to get early access to Bang On a few weeks ago and I’ve been launching it all the time. It’s a great app, it’s got a good-looking icon, it’s universal, and is just $2 in the app store.

Bang On — A Nice Search App

Sweet App: Visual, an iOS Timer

Visual is a simple countdown timer for your iPhone. Instead of showing a stopwatch-like countdown, the app takes over your whole iPhone screen with a single color. It starts out green and slowly fades to yellow and then red as your time runs out. You can pick other color pallets if you like.

Last month I changed my email workflow to only allow myself 44 minutes per day for email checking — one 22-minute segment in the early afternoon and another 22-minute segment towards the end of my day. And I’ve been using Visual to budget that time. 1

There is no shortage of iPhone timer apps. iOS comes with a built-in timer, and if that’s not good enough for you, Due is a highly-recommended and splendid alternative. What I like about Visual is that the face of the iPhone doesn’t say exactly how much time I have (well, it does, in ultra-fine print at the bottom of the screen for those who just must know).

Instead visual conveys about how much time is left through the nature of the visual timer.

Visual, an iPhone timer app

A countdown timer like this would never fly in a NASA control room, but for my office it works quite well.

My only two gripes with Visual are:

  • The icon. I’m not sure where it came from, but it sure doesn’t seem related to the rest of the app which is simple and well designed.

  • If you launch the app after the timer is done you are greeted with the “timer’s done” screen, rather than the launch screen for starting a new timer. Since you’re pretty much always are launching the app to start a new timer the app always requires an extra tap to get to the settings pane.

Visual is just a buck on the App Store. And be sure to check out the promo video, it’s pretty great as well.

  1. My reasoning behind the 44-minutes of email routine could take up an article all its own. But, in short, my reasoning is that cleaning out my whole inbox every single day is an unrealistic goal. And so, instead of allowing the amount of email in my inbox to dictate how much time and attention I need to spend there, I’ve set my own time budget for how much I’m willing to give to my email inbox. And yes, I admit that I am in a unique and fortunate position that I don’t have to check my email as part of my job. It behooves me to check my email, but I have no boss or co-workers relying on me to read and reply to email. ↵
Sweet App: Visual, an iOS Timer

Instacast for iPhone 2.0  →

I’ve been using Instacast to subscribe and listen to podcasts since I first came across it over a year ago. It’s simply a great app and version 2 has a lot of design and functionality improvements — I like how Stephen Hackett describes it as the best getting better.

Thanks to apps like Instacast and Rdio, the native Music app on my iPhone pretty much never gets used. Instacast 2 is just a buck in the app store.

Instacast for iPhone 2.0

Timothy Collins on His 4-inch iPhone Theory  →

Timothy Collins, the one who called into the Vergecast a few weeks ago and shared his very clever theory on how Apple could pull off a 4-inch iPhone, writes more about how he came about his theory:

I came up with this “theory” from thinking, using logic, and simply what I want from a new iPhone, mixed with what I thought Apple would want from a new iPhone.

I think Timothy is right in his assumption that, if Apple were to bust out a 4-inch iPhone, it very well may do so without changing the physical dimensions of the current iPhone in any direction. And wouldn’t that be something just like Apple? — introducing a new form factor without designing a new form factor. Though, as we’ve discovered from the new iPad, if Apple is going to compromise to solve an engineering enigma, they will compromise on size and/or weight first.

Timothy Collins on His 4-inch iPhone Theory

Drafts for iPhone  →

This new iPhone app from Greg Pierce at Agile Tortoise reminds me of Birdhouse, but on steroids. It launches straight away into an empty text box so you can jot down any thought or note you like. From there you can save the draft of the note you just created or share it via Twitter, email, etc. It even supports Markdown export.

I like how Federico Viticci calls it a “Launch Center for text”. And Dave Caolo and Stephen Hackett both too have written brief reviews.

This app is also just a buck in the App Store.

Drafts for iPhone

Propellerhead’s Figure  →

Propellerhead, the guys who make the infamous and industry-standard Reason software, just launched this new iPhone app called Figure. It’s like a game where you use the built-in drum machine and synth sounds to make your own cool loops. It’s fun and surprisingly easy to use even for non-musicians. But if you do get confused, or want to learn more, their iPhone-friendly online manual is very well put together. And it’s just a buck in the App Store.

(Via Ben Brooks.)

Update: Here’s one of my loops that I made this morning. Sadly, you can’t save or export the loops you make, so I held my iPhone up to my Yeti and recorded 8 bars worth in QuickTime. Fun nonetheless.

Propellerhead’s Figure

Something Like Launchpad for iOS?  →

This is an interesting thought from Joe Caiati and Joe Arico about Apple bringing Launchpad from OS X to iOS. Caiati and Arico aren’t talking about the look of Launchpad — the grid of big icons is obviously taken from the iOS Home screen — rather, he’s talking about the way Launchpad works as a place where all the apps you do or don’t use are hidden away out of sight but yet easily accessible.

In short, if Launchpad made if full circle back onto iOS, would it be akin to the App Drawer in Android? Serving as a way to help clean up the plethora of Home screens which are getting more and more full of folders and apps?

Something Like Launchpad for iOS?