DETAILS OF IPHONE 4

                                              

In addition to the normal microphone, Apple has added a second one on the top edge, finally giving the iPhone noise cancellation. This greatly improves the phone's ability to suppress background noise and bring clarity to your voice when making calls. In our tests it proved very effective, successfully filtering out the noise of passing cars and other background din. It's a welcome feature, but it would of course be remiss of us not to point out that this is a feature other decent phones have had for many a year and the iPhone is really just playing catchup here.

As for the phone's speaker, it remains mono and of the same quality as previous iPhones, so watching video and listening to music is limited in scope. However it's still impressively loud and adequate for listening to quiet music in bed, showing your mates a YouTube clip, or of course making a speaker call. Incidentally, the earpiece appears to have improved, with it being less sensitive to how you press it against your ear. One oddity is the speaker and microphone have swapped places on the new phone, with the speaker now behind the left grill and the mic on the right.

After its class-leading build quality and design, the iPhone 4's next standout feature is its screen. Sporting 960 x 640 pixels, it has four times as many as previous iPhones and more than most other smartphones out there. Apple calls this its Retina screen as its pixel density of 326px per inch is greater than the human eye can distinguish. Marketing jargon though this is, the new screen is undoubtedly sharper than any we've seen previously and is quite something to behold.

However, in practice it didn't actually make a huge difference to how we used the phone. We'd still generally zoom in to about the same level to read a block of text simply because having it any smaller would require holding the device three inches from our faces to make out the words. Obviously it's a great feature, but if you've been touting this as the reason to upgrade be prepared to be slightly underwhelmed.

Perhaps of more import, Apple has also quadrupled the contrast ratio, giving images a greater sense of depth and punch. Viewing angles are also excellent and a notable improvement over previous gen devices. All told, this is the best LCD screen we've seen on a phone.

As for the fact that Apple hasn't used OLED display technology, well it does mean the display's viewing angles aren't quite as flawlessly impressive and colours aren't quite as saturated as they could be. However, colours instead look more natural than on most OLED screens we've seen and, because of the transflective nature of LCD panels, the iPhone's screen is much easier to see in bright sunshine, if you can avoid reflections of course. One final note on the screen, it has a much blacker background, when off, than previous iPhones so the screen almost completely disappears from view. It's a small thing, but it definitely adds to the phone's feeling of quality.

Though not as revelatory as the introduction of video and auto focus seen on the 3GS, the camera on the iPhone 4 is still a notable upgrade. With a five megapixel sensor and including an LED flash, its core specs are merely inline with most smartphones and still trail most dedicated camera phones. However, a camera is about more than just its megapixel count; there's the lens quality, sensor size, image processing, ease of use, and performance.

As such Apple points out the sensor in its camera is of the new backside illuminated variety that are supposed to have inherently better lowlight performance than conventional sensors. This was certainly borne out in our tests, where we noticed less grain and colour distortion in the iPhone's photos. It also seemed to reproduce detail and colour better overall than many standard phones we've tried. Be under no pretence, though, it is still well within the realms of phone-camera quality.
                                      
What really helps the iPhone's photo taking abilities is the camera application, which is wonderfully easy to use with just a flash on/off/auto icon in the top left and an icon in the top right that flips between the front and back facing cameras, in addition to the existing three icons along the bottom for the picture gallery, shutter, and switching between video and stills. The app also loads pretty quickly and you can rattle off around six shots in ten seconds, which is very impressive for a phone.

As for that video mode, again the app is impressively easy to use and quick to respond. However, much as with the first phone we reviewed with 720p video, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz, the resulting footage leaves a lot to be desired. It is of course good for a phone and looks okay on the phone's screen, but watch it on a decent screen and the footage's dull colours and inability to deal with high contrast situations (like bright sunshine) really show up.

Clips can be combined into a timeline along with pictures and you can even overlay music or a voice over. There are multiple transitions to choose from, all manner of overlays and titles, and you can even apply effects, like the Ken Burns effect, to keep your footage interesting. Once complete you can export your video at 360p, 480p or 720p quality and from there you can then upload it to youtube or send it to a friend.

You can also choose from five preset themes, which determine introduction screens, overlays, and transitions and you can just drop your footage in to create a quick film. Particularly clever is the Travel theme that will reference the geotagged info in your video footage and show the location on a map in the background. It's a seriously neat bit of software that's so easy to use, and for the money it's an absolute steal.

The final piece in the iPhone 4's video related puzzle is its video calling application, Facetime. Announced with much fanfare, it allows you to seamlessly flip between video calling or voice calling and between the VGA front facing camera and the main camera on the rear so the person you're chatting to can see your face or what you're looking at. It's very easy to use and quality is excellent. In fact, it's so nice to use, we could even learn to see the benefits of video calling. However, at the moment it's only available from iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 and only over Wi-Fi so a killer feature, it certainly isn't. Moreover, the front facing camera can't be used at all for conventional video calling.

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FEATURES OF IPHONE 4

The revolutionary iPhone also includes an equally revolutionary screen reader, and other innovative accessibility features that make it easier to use for those with impaired vision.
                                    
The same VoiceOver screen reader made popular on the Mac is now a standard feature on iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS. It’s the world’s first gesture-based screen reader, enabling you to enjoy the fun and simplicity of iPhone even if you can’t see the screen.

What makes VoiceOver on iPhone truly remarkable is that you control it using simple gestures that let you physically interact with items on screen. It’s easy to learn and fun to use. Instead of memorizing hundreds of keyboard commands, or endlessly pressing tiny arrow keys to find what you’re looking for, with VoiceOver, you simply touch the screen to hear a description of the item under your finger, then gesture with a double-tap, drag, or flick to control the phone.

VoiceOver delivers an experience unlike any screen reader you’ve ever used before. Traditional screen readers describe individual elements on the screen, but struggle to communicate where each element is located or provide information about adjoining objects. This contextual information is very important but typically filtered out by other screen readers. For example, “off-screen” models used by traditional screen readers to represent applications and web pages intentionally strip away contextual information and describe web pages as a list or menu of items. But with VoiceOver on iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS, you’ll experience something entirely new.

Because VoiceOver works with iPhone’s touchscreen, you interact directly with objects on the screen and can naturally understand their location and context. So, when you touch the upper-left corner of the screen, you’ll hear what’s in the upper left corner of a web page, and as you drag your finger around the screen, you’ll learn what’s nearby, providing an amazing new sense of context and relationship between the items you hear. For many, VoiceOver on iPhone will provide, perhaps for the first time, a true sense of how things appear on screen, not just descriptions of what they are.

You’ll hear descriptions of every item on the screen, including status information such as battery level, Wi-Fi and cellular network signal levels, the cellular network provider, and time of day. It even lets you know when the display changes to landscape or portrait orientation, and when the screen is locked or unlocked.
                                  
The speaking rate is adjustable so you can set it to a speed that best suits your listening ability. VoiceOver uses distinctive sound effects to alert you when an application opens, when the screen is updated, when a message dialog appears, and more. And, when Voiceover is talking, the volume of background sounds and music are automatically lowered, “ducking” under the voice, so you can clearly hear what VoiceOver is telling you.
It speaks your language

VoiceOver includes built-in voices that speak 21 languages including Bahasa Indonesian, Chinese (Cantonese), Chinese (China), Chinese (Taiwan), Dutch, English (US), English (UK), English (Australian), Finnish, French (Canada), French (France), German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish (Mexico), Spanish (Spain), Swedish, Thai, Turkish.
Getting started

VoiceOver is built right into iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS. There’s nothing extra to purchase or install. All you need is iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS, the latest version of iTunes, and a Mac or PC. You can activate your iPhone and enable VoiceOver without sighted assistance using iTunes with a compatible screen reader like VoiceOver included in Mac OS X and GW-Micro Window-Eyes® for Windows XP and Windows Vista (sold separately). When you activate iPhone using iTunes, you can enable VoiceOver on iPhone to start using it right away. Sighted users can also enable VoiceOver for you directly on iPhone using the Accessibility menu in the Settings application.
How it works

With VoiceOver enabled, you’ll use a different but simple set of gestures to control iPhone. For example, instead of tapping to activate a button, tap the button to hear a description of it, double-tap to activate it, and swipe up or down to adjust a slider.

When an item on the screen is selected, a black rectangle called the VoiceOver cursor appears around it. The VoiceOver cursor is displayed for the benefit of sighted users with whom you may be sharing your phone. When you prefer privacy, VoiceOver includes a screen curtain that turns off the display so no one can read it without your knowledge.

In addition to touching and dragging around the screen, you can also flick left and right to move the VoiceOver cursor precisely to the next or previous item on the screen—no matter how big or small it is. By flicking, you have precise control of what you hear even when it might otherwise be difficult to place your finger on it.

When you’re typing text, such as an email message or a note, VoiceOver echoes each character on the keyboard as you touch it, and again to confirm when you enter it. You can also have VoiceOver speak each completed word instead of and in addition to individual characters as you type them. A flick up or down while typing moves the insertion point cursor left and right within the text so you can edit a word just as easily and precisely as typing a new word.

The Rotor
Two fingers touching a iPhone display and a counter-clockwise arrow indicating how to enter a rotate gesture.

VoiceOver features an innovative new virtual control called a “rotor.” Turning the rotor— by rotating two fingers on the screen as if you were turning an actual dial — changes the way VoiceOver moves through a document based on a setting you choose. For example, a flick up or down might move through text word by word. But when you choose the “character” setting, each time you flick up or down VoiceOver will move through the text character by character — perfect when you’re proofreading or editing text.

You can also use the rotor to navigate web pages. When you’re on a web page, the rotor contains the names of common items, such as headers, links, form elements, images, and more. You select a setting, then flick up and down to move to the previous or next occurrence of that item on the page, skipping over items in between.
Applications

VoiceOver works with all of the built-in applications that come with iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS, such as Phone, iPod, iTunes, Mail, Safari, and Maps. So, you can place and receive calls, surf the web, text and email your friends, check your stocks and the weather, and much, much more. Apple is also working with iPhone software developers so they can make their applications VoiceOver compatible. Learn more
Wireless Braille Displays

You can use a refreshable braille display that uses Bluetooth wireless technology to read VoiceOver output in braille. In addition, braille displays with input keys and other controls can be used to control iPhone when VoiceOver is turned on. iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS work with many of the most popular wireless braille displays.

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