iPhone 4S – personal review

I have just acquired my very first iPhone and yes, its an iPhone 4S! I managed to upgrade my handset for £168 and my monthly contract, but pay less per month than I was previously. I guess being a loyal customer does have its rewards eventually.

I have been playing around with various apps and the camera too. At the weekend we visited Dunwich, on the Suffolk coast, where we used to holiday every year when the children were very young. It was a very blustery day with bright sunshine so not ideal conditions it would seem for shooting a video or two and taking lots of photos. despite this I managed to end up with some great shots. The in-built stabilisation definitely does work.

In this image you can see that the default settings have produced a well-balanced shot with good exposure and sharpness; this despite me having to lean against another boat to steady myself as I was being really buffeted by the strong winds.

In the video above there is a lot of wind noise, not surprisingly but considering once again I was being buffeted by the strong winds, the video is a good first effort and I am really impressed with the quality.

So, overall my first impressions are that the iPhone 4S is a very capable device for taking photographs and video. I won’t be buying a compact camera any time soon, that’s for sure!

Related articles

• The Best Reason To Get An iPhone 4S (mgpcpastor.com)
• 15 Minutes Challenge Between iPhone 4S And Galaxy S II (VIDEO) (netwidz.com)
• iPhone 4S Example Pictures (macstories.net)
• Apple’s new iPhone 4S: An early review (bizjournals.com)
• Official Marco.org in-depth review of the iPhone 4S (marco.org)
• iPhone 4S Video And Photo Quality Test (johnchow.com)
• Apple iPhone 4S review: Still the best? (intomobile.com)
• iPhone camera improvements documented (techradar.com)

iPad 2 parody video

Check out this funny iPad 2 video parody:

Apple has always generated this sort of response and its part of the cult(ture) of the Mac it seems, to do so. Check out the author’s site too at http://www.itunedstevejobs.com/

Microsoft don’t tell the whole truth!

Image via CrunchBase

Many folk have seen the latest video ad by Microsoft knocking Macs and trying to convince potential purchasers that Macs aren’t up to the job. The video features a woman called Sheila looking for a laptop on which to edit video. She describes herself as an independent film-maker. What isn’t clear is whether she is a real person and therefore genuinely looking for a laptop on which she can really edit her films. This is an important point but not clear from the ad.

Why is it important? Well, if she is an actor then why should we pay any credence to her actual choice… after all, as an actor she is unlikely to be an independent film-maker and therefore has little or no idea of what video-editing requires in terms of hardware or software. More on this in a minute. If she is really an independent filmmaker, then we have the right to ask a few pertinent questions. Like, why is there no mention of what video-editing software she is intending to use? Anyone who knows anything about editing video knows that your choice of software affects which computer platform you will need.. Apple’s industry-standard software will of course only run on a Mac, whilst you can run pc software on a Mac via Boot Camp, Parallels or Fusion. So, the fact that she is looking at both Macs and pc laptops means she hasn’t finalized her choice of software, putting the proverbial cart before the horse so to speak!

Now, looking at her final choice, TUAW points out that she actually chooses a laptop that doesn’t compare well with the Mac she rejected. It has less screen resolution (1366×768 compared to the Mac’s 1440×900) and its RAM is slower (DDR2 compared to the Macs DDR3). Looking at other features (comparing the base configuration of the Macbook Pro to that of the HP HDX16t), we can see that the Mac also has a better spec for the following:

• Processor – Mac 2.44GHz (15″) or 2.66GHZ (17″) compared to HDX16t 2.2GHz. Only the top-end model has a 2.93GHz cpu
• Graphics card(s) – Mac has 2 cards (9600 GT & 9400M) whilst HP has one (9600 GT or GT 130M)

So, we can see that the ad really tells us very little, except that Sheila is not a good example for us to follow!

Apple to redefine Mobile Video?

Image via CrunchBase

Is about to introduce mobile video editing on the iPhone? According to Peter Burrows of BusinessWeek on April 30 they could be abut to do just that. Apple recently introduced its iPhone 3.0 software and according to sources like Gizmodo, the evidence is buried in the new iPhone software.

With the growing popularity of mobile video (think of the Flip) it would be logical next move for Apple. After all, they completely dominate the portable audio market with the iPod, they have revolutionised the mobile gaming market with the iPhone and the iTouch and they are leading the way with the iPhone as regards the mobile smart-phone market. Remember too that the various hacks out there to enhance the iPhone’s capabilities as regards stills and video are evidence of pent-up demand.

So, just think of how great it would be have a simple way of shooting video, edit on your iPhone and then send it to your mother! Apple may be about to make that dream a reality.