<IT WORLD> Another Apple miracle By Martin J
Young
HUA HIN, Thailand - Expectations were
so high for the latest version of Apple's iPhone
that it was dubbed "Jesus-Phone" before it was
unveiled at Apple's Worldwide Developers
Conference on Monday amid choreographed bright
lights and the excessive hype that is now the norm
from CEO Steve Jobs and Co at product launches.
Apple worshipers will no doubt be
marveling at the slightly squarer corners and 24%
reduction in thickness of the iPhone4, or drooling
over the new aluminosilicate glass screen which,
Apple claims, is also used in helicopters. The
real test will be whether the unit can fight off
the fierce competition in today's smart-phone
market.
Compared to its predecessor, the
iPhone 3GS, the new device does boast a number of
upgrades and improvements. Battery life, one thorn
in the side of the iPhone, has been ratcheted up by
around 25%, depending on
usage, with up to seven hours talk time or data on
3G, against five hours on the earlier device and
marginal increases when using wireless Internet or
viewing video.
Other features and upgrades
include an improved 5 megapixel camera with a
front-facing secondary camera for video chat;
integrated antennas; increased pixel density
display; a three-axis gyroscope for improved
gaming experiences; and HD video recording. On the
software side, there is a new range of options and
applications from the new operating system, iOS4,
which include an iMovie video editor, an iBooks
e-reader, and FaceTime video conferencing tools,
many of which will be available at the company's
app store for a few dollars extra.
The
iPhone 4 is due to go on sale on June 24, when the
usual queues of Apple fanatics are to be expected
along with the usual array of system overloading
and registration problems. The unit will be priced
at US$199 for the 16 gigabyte version and $299 for
the 32 GB model, both only available with the
usual lock-in contract from Apple's preferred
carrier, AT&T in the US - that is until the
geeks in the blogosphere release a jailbreak and
unlock for the world's most talked-about
telephone.
In the non-Apple corner, a
formidable number of companies are mounting rival
devices, including Google with the Nexus One, HTC
with the Evo 4G and Motorola's Droid, all of which
arguably have better specifications and more
flexibility. This Android-powered army is eating
away at Apple's dominance; others in the
smart-phone battle such as Nokia, Microsoft and
Research In Motion continue to play catch up.
With Apple bringing out a new iPhone every
summer since its inception in 2007, it does still
continue to set the trend, though as we've seen
with the iPad, competitors are quick to ape it.
Apple started the stream which has now become a
torrent, and a flooded market means more choice
for the consumer.
Search Google
has gone about shaking up its search algorithms
with a new system dubbed Caffeine, which it
announced this week. Traditionally the search
giant would crawl through the web updating its
listings in a linear fashion overnight (it used to
be as infrequently as every 30 days and before
that every four months) depending on how
significant it valued the website in question.
The new technology, which Google has been
testing for around a year, will offer up to 50%
fresher search results than its current system,
according to a post on the company blog.
The objectives of the new system are speed
and comprehensiveness to keep up with the
explosion of new web content, which has coincided
with the increase of blogs, forums, and social
networking sites over the past couple of years.
The real-time search technology will enable Google
to display results within seconds of the
information being posted on the web; it will
analyze smaller chunks of the Internet as opposed
to all of it at a time.
Caffeine is no
small feat; the system can process hundreds of
thousands of web pages per second and takes up a
hundred million gigabytes of space (100
petabytes). It is the biggest shakeup of Google's
top-secret search algorithms since 2006 and is
likely to provide a boost for news and social
websites, along with blogs and forums, as opposed
to static keyword-stuffed pages and giant online
directories and stores that currently dominate its
search results pages.
Internet China reaffirmed its
position on state control of the Internet in a
government white paper released on Tuesday.
Beijing has tightened its vice-like grip on the
flow of electronic information to the world's
largest number of Internet users despite the
high-profile wrangling with Google earlier this
year that gave many hope of more freedom online.
The document urged the expansion of
Internet usage in China by stating "The Chinese
government encourages the use of the Internet in
ways which aim to promote economic and social
progress, to improve public services and
facilitate people's work and life."
However it showed no relaxation of
stringent controls that have seen some of the
world's most popular websites such as Facebook,
Twitter and YouTube blocked from public view.
It went on to state that China will show
no tolerance of outside criticism and that the
Internet comes under the jurisdiction of Chinese
sovereignty within its borders. Government
reasoning for censorship was left vague for the
sole purpose of emphasizing the fact that it owns
the Internet in China.
Martin J Young is an Asia Times Online correspondent based in Thailand.
(Copyright 2010
Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights
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