There’s one thing about the iPhone 3G that no one has mentioned, so maybe I’m the clever one having discovered it first: it uses a different screen than the current iPhone.
Is this a big deal? Perhaps. How do I know? Well, I know that the current iPhone’s screen clocks in at 160dpi. That’s an incredibly high density, which is why the graphics on the iPhone’s screen are so amazingly realistic.
But the new iPhone 3G’s screen isn’t quite 160dpi: it’s 163dpi.
Sounds better, right? Well, maybe. But probably not. It just so happens that the iPod touch’s screen is also 163dpi. And while it’s still impressive, the iPod touch screen is ever so noticeably inferior to the original iPhone’s.
So…is Apple cutting costs by cheaping out on the iPhone 3G’s screen?
Will it matter in the end? No, of course not. Does it matter now? Only in the context of it being news because it’s Apple. If it were a touchscreen (ha) on a Zune from the beleaguered Microsoft, all 13 Zune owners might be up in arms, but, well. ……. …… ….. sorry, I nodded off there.
The tech specs for the current 2G iPhone state that it also has a 163dpi screen:
http://support.apple.com/specs/iphone/iPhone.html
So I wonder if this really is going to be an issue.. Hopefully not!
Cheers,
Stu
That is, indeed what the tech specs say now, now that the original iPhone specs have been moved off the product page and into the support area.
However, when the iPod touch came out and was (then) significantly cheaper than an iPhone, I remember checking how they could sell it for so much less. The spec was then, in fact, 160dpi.
Notes from the 2007 keynote: http://www.macrumors.com/2007/01/09/macworld-sf-2007-keynote-notes/ (scroll to the “Mini OS X” section)
The official video from Macworld Keynote 2007 @ time index 38:18 http://www.godofbiscuits.com/blog/images/160ppi.png
It was spec’d at 160ppi.