By now you’ve all heard reports that the iPhone 4 has a “terrible design flaw” that makes it useless for calls once you pick it up. Well, ok, I’m exaggerating a bit but you’d be forgiven for thinking that with the way this story has spread like wild fire. Now, I don’t doubt that some people are having an issue with this, but I’m amazed at the way this story was reported and the way it was picked up by the mainstream news media. First of all, Gizmodo were pushing this big time on Thursday, along with any other story they could find to paint the iPhone in a bad light (including, surprise surprise, you drop it and it breaks). Big surprise. From there other blogs started picking up on it and then it reached the mainstream media. What amazes me about this is that, first of all, most of the people reviewing the phone never noticed an issue with it and that most reviewers had noticed improved reception.
The Hypocrisy of Gizmodo
Given the recent complaints made by Gizmodo that they are being unfairly targeted by law enforcement officials over the iPhone incident, I think you might find this article interesting.
Awesome Electronic version of Wired Magazine Demo
From the SXSW Conference, a demo of Wired’s reader App. This would make me want to get an iPad for this alone (yes, I know the demo is not done on an iPad).
Canon 5D Mark II “Cinema” Firmware now Available
The much requested, often rumoured, previously promised firmware upgrade for the 5D Mark II is now available from the Canon website. From the release notes:
Firmware Version 2.0.3 incorporates five enhancements to the movie function and a fix to the manual sensor cleaning function of the EOS 5D Mark II camera.
Adds or changes the following movie frame rates.
NTSC:
1920×1080 : 30 fps (changed – actual 29.97 fps)
1920×1080 : 24 fps (added – actual 23.976 fps)
640×480 : 30 fps (changed – actual 29.97 fps)
PAL:
1920×1080 : 25 fps (added – actual 25.0 fps)
1920×1080 : 24 fps (added – actual 23.976 fps)
640×480 : 25 fps (added – actual 25.0 fps)Adds a function for manually adjusting the sound recording level (64 levels).
Adds a histogram display (brightness or RGB) for shooting movies in manual exposure.
Adds shutter-priority AE mode (Tv) and aperture-priority AE (Av) mode to the exposure modes for shooting movies.
Changes the audio sampling frequency from 44.1 KHz to 48 KHz.
Fixes a phenomenon where communication between the camera and the attached lens is sometimes interrupted after manual sensor cleaning. (This phenomenon only affects units with Firmware Version 1.2.4.)
According to Philip Bloom, the update also ups the bit rate of video from 38mbits to around 44mbits. I’ll upgrade mine later today and give it a try if I get a chance. It will be great to have 25fps being from a PAL country.
1000fps Pedigree Commercial
Check out this amazing commercial for pedigree, shot at 1000 frames per second on the Phantom.
Kindle vs iPad
Since the iPad was announced pundits have been jumping at the chance to declare the Kindle dead or dying. Amazon themselves have reacted, perhaps preemptively by announcing an SDK for the kindle. Analysts have declared that the Kindle’s market share will dramatically drop and so on. The thing is though, I don’t quite understand why Amazon has to fear for its life because of the iPad. If anything, the iPad is a great opportunity for Amazon.
I could be wrong on this (and I’m sure someone will correct me), but it seems to me, the Kindle exists to sell ebooks from Amazon. I’m sure they make some money from the hardware, but their main revenue is probably from selling books. By contrast Apple’s iBooks store will serve to drive sales of the iPad, with the hardware being the primary revenue model. Considering that Amazon already has a Kindle iPhone App, I don’t see why they don’t just bring the full kindle experience to the iPad via an App. There is of course the possibility that Apple would reject it, but I doubt it because there are many book readers in the App store already. Apple have already said that the iBooks application will be a download from the App store rather than existing on the device so they would be on something of an even footing.
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