iPhone Secondary Backlight

Hey guys. I come to you today with more great news! Our source in China has been able to play with the prototype model a bit and he has leaked some new information to us. Apparently, the iPhone prototype has the recently-patented Secondary Backlight system built right into it. You will recall from our previous post on the prototype that the new model has an alleged 450 hours of stand-by time. Well, we realized that our source was wrong about how he had presented this information to us. The 45o hours of stand-by time would be a valid claim had he been talking about the current iPhone model, the iPhone 3G.

“a cheap yet energy efficient battery that  ” will be able to power an iPhone 3G for up to 8 hours of talk-time on 3G and 15-20 hours on 2G.”  The tipster also boasts and incredible claim of 450 hours of stand-by”

What our source meant was that “should the new battery-pack be on an iPhone 3G, it can supply stand-by time power for up to 450 hours.” The cited hours of talk-time however, are accurate with the prototype model as well. So, what really is the stand-by time of the prototype / iPhone 4G you ask? Well here is a detailed explanation.

Remember the patent that Apple filed sometime back? It involved the iPhone having a dual Back-light system. Well folks, that is what we have in the prototype. That finally explains the reason behind the extra powerful battery pack. This new backlight system that Apple has included in the prototype is Apple’s answer to allowing customers to check on their phones’ statuses without having to do much. This new backlight system involves two lighting set-ups. One is the main backlight that functions only when necessary, and the other is a backlight that remains on as long as the phone is locked. 

This new systems allows the user to quickly check on statuses such as Messages and Missed calls without having to do anything at all. The new prototype software installed on the model also goes hand in hand with this new feature. When the phone is set to lock, a new display is seen, along with the turning on of the secondary backlight. The backlight fades in gently and reveals a summary screen of sorts. The screen contains information such as Missed Calls, Text Messages, Emails as well as the most recently received SMS’s Preview. The new screen also displays information such as the upcoming appointments in your calendar as well as the amount of Battery remaining. I do believe that this screen can be customized to your liking with components that you use the most. I also have feeling that it might be editable via a drag and drop method. You select the “widgets” that you want from a list, and drop it into pre-assigned slots on the screen. This could very well be Apple’s answer to Dashboard on the iPhone. 

So how does Apple make sure that this system is power efficient. Well, first of all, the secondary set-up is designed only to fully light up a small portion of the screen. The light emitted by this system is also a lot dimmer than the full backlight at it’s dimmest. In short, the secondary system uses as little energy as possible . Here is the configuration of the Secondary Backlight.

 

Secondary Backlight Configuration

The light is only concentrated in a particular spot. The rest of the display is then lit up by light that is emitted by the sides of the main source. Thus, the more vital details and information are presented towards the centre, where the light is brightest. So when you have an always on Backlight system and a battery capable of lasting 45o hours, what do you get?

The answer that our source revealed to us was arrived at after hours of testing by the factory that made the prototype. The verdict, the iPhone prototype has a stand-by time of up to 325 hours. That is a 25 hour improvement over the current iPhone 3G. Our source tells us that the battery times for call usage was accurately mentioned during the last post. So yes, we might possibly be looking at a future iPhone that could have up to 8 hours of talk-time on 3G and 15-20 hours on 2G, as well as up to 325 hours of stand-by. Not too bad if you ask me. Well then, here is a look of the new Secondary-Backlight system.

 

The New Secondary-backlight system. Notice the dimmed lighting and the use of light diffusion. Click to enlarge.

 

 

We will be back with more news on the prototype as soon as we get them. Our source has given us word that he will be messing around with the Video Chat application on his next correspondence.

Let’s Rock, Indeed

 

Okay folks. We gave just seen El Jobsco releasing a whole plethora if updates and new product releases. This was perhaps one of the most leaked event in the history of Apple events but hey, even Old Jobs was cool about it! So here is the event wrap up.

 

Firstly, Jobs started the whole Keynote with a simple sentence about reports of him dying. He called them ‘exagerratrd’.

 

iTunes 8.0
The first major announcement for this keynote address was in fact the release of iTunes 8. This was one of the 2 software releases. As rumoutrd and claimed by Digg founder, Kevin Rose, there is in fact a feature known as Fenits. What genius is basically, a Automagic Playlist maker. With one click, a user can crwate an entire playlist of 25, 50, 75, or 100 songs, all that sound perfect together. I used to sit down and do this manually, because that is how I like to listen to my music. They all need to fit right. But with Grnius, we can all take this one step further.

So how exactly does genius work? Well that’s really simple. I was thinking along the lines of BPM, artist locale, genre and such. Well, it’s all if that, plus more. You see, computers, no matter how advanced, will never be able to approviate and let alone understand music the way we do. So, how did Apple pull this off? Simple. They got help from humans. Not just one or two humans, but the entire population of the world that usues iTunes. Genius uses algorithms written specially for this feature. It reads playlist compilations from all over the world and remeners them. It also uses other factors like BPM and Gener to figure out the beat possible listening experience that a user can get. One thing though, the team at Infinitech is not sure if this works with non-iTunes purchased music. It will be a pity if it doesn’t. Seriously. The Infinitech Team discovered that Genius does indeed work with our own music.

Apparently, to turn Genius on, one would require an iTunes Music Store Account. Thus, this new feature would be a bummer for folks living in Places without one. However, Genius is really very easy to activate. The whole process is automatic. However, it does take a while if your Library is really large.

To make sure that Genius appears on your iPods, you have to enable this feature in your Computer. We believe this measure only affects the iPod Touch devices.

Activating Genius is a Simple, 3-Step Process

Other updates that we have seen to the new iTunes include more accessablilty options. These are a Mac related feature and do not seem to be present on the Windows version of the Jukebox. Another great feature is a new colour code for Applications on the Capacity Bar. The Capacity Bar is an indicator at the bottom of any iPod’s Screen in iTunes, that shows a graphical representation of your iPod (or iPhone’s) capacity and its usage. In iTunes 8, Appls a coloured green instead of being lumped with Others as seen previously.

 

Apps now appear Green

 

iPod Galore
This event also saw one of the best line-up of iPods that Apple had ever brought to the table. With new refreshes and upgrades, we think Apple is all set to earn more money in the coming months. Stock holders, get ready for some rise and profits!

The iPod Nano is probably the most purchased iPod due to it’s small and convinent size. However, people were bit really happy with the “fat nano” that Apple released last year. This event brings to us the new Nano. Images of this iPod has been floating on the net for nearly over a week now. And Lo and Behold, we get Steve introducing this iPod to use today. So, what is new? A ton of stuff. This includes many thing borrowed from the iPhone. The new nano brings to us a new interface that has a Now Playing screen similar to that of the iPhone’s. The software for this iPod has integration for the new Genius feature. You can make Genius playlists right on the Nano. Just press and hold the Centre Button to access a new popup menu. We also see an inclusion of the Accelerometer, a first for anything outside of the Multi-touch interface product range. This, together with a whole new range of 9 colors dubbed Nano-chromatic, makes the Nano, the funkiest iPod in town. The structure of the iPod is now made of Aluminum. This makes the iPod free from any scratchable materials resulting in a Very Durable iPod.

4th Generation iPod Nano

 

The next big thing this morning was the iPod touch. Heralded as the next best thing to the iPhone, this baby just got better this morning. The 2nd Generation Touch sees the inclusion of a Volume Control. This has been the most sought after feature on this iPod. Another interesting upgrade is the inclusion of speakers. I believe that this would make the most sense as the iPod can now play games and such that can be downloaded from the straight AppStore. The new iPod Touch also features an in-built receiver for the Nike+iPod module. All you need to do is to get the foot module that you would have to put into the shoe. Apple now seem the Touch as the funnest iPod after all those upgrades. The structural aspect of the iPod seems to be a little iPhone inspired. There is the inclusion of the tapering sides, as well as a change in material. The back of the Touch is now Stainless Steel. Not completely scratch-proof, but less prone than the Chrome that we are used to seeing. Looks like Apple is finally making all of it’s products more durable!

2nd Generation iPod Touch

 

Apple has also discontinued the Fat Classics and increased the capacity on the Thin Classic to 120 GB.

Software and The Environment

The next Software announcement made today would hebrelease of the 2.1 update that everyone has been waiting for. It is free for Both the iPod Touch and the iPhone, but most importantly, Steve has promised us a stable software and all bugs fixed. So, no more crashing Apps! Also, songs are now listed with thier Artist Names and Albums unedr them in grey. A nifty little improvement I must say!

The new update is out for iPod Touch today, and iPhone on Friday (USA), and Saturday (Singapore and Asia).

Apple has also been very environmentally conscious about it’s new products. All of it’s new iPods are Fully Recyclable.

Let’s Rock

Hey all,

Just a quick update from the guys at Infinitech. Apparently, the rumors have been confirmed, and there is to be a Special Event on the 9th of September. From the blogosphere, we understand that this is rumored to be an iPod+iTunes only event, probably releasing the new lines of iPods and the largely awaited iTunes 8.0 Jukebox Software. 

Let’s Rock Invitation

There is also a revamp of the iPod line to be expected, the most prominent ones being the iPod Nano and iPod Touch. AppleInsider has come up with sketches of the new iPod Nano and the Touch, which are supposed to be taller and more tapered respectively.

iPod Nano 4G

The iPod touch has more tapered edges (3rd Sketch)

And that’s about it. There have been talks of the Macbook line being launched at Let’s Rock. We are expecting that the plastic is hopefully going to be changed to the more scratch-resistant anodized aluminium used in Apple’s ‘Pro’ series products.

Let’s see on September 9.