The iPhone 4 and the Genius of Apple’s Marketing

You have to hand it over to Apple’s Marketing. They don’t exactly have the best product technically speaking, but they are able to sell and sell lots. Take for example the claims they have for the iPhone 4:

FaceTime – Phone calls like you’ve never seen before.

Reality: False. Video calls, which is what FaceTime is, have been seen before in other phones since 3G came about. Another limitation is that FaceTime requires WiFi. If you have WiFi you could just as well be using video chat apps such as Yahoo! Messenger and Skype (assuming the iPhone lets you run those).

Retina display – The world’s sharpest, highest-resolution phone display.

Reality: True. At 960×640 is the highest out there. But not by much, some phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S (800 x 480) also have relatively high resolutions. Plus resolution is just part of the picture. Super AMOLED is more power-efficient,  better contrast ratio, better color reproduction, and faster response time. Check here for more.

Multitasking – Done the right way.

Reality:  False. iOS multitasking allows only for specially made apps to run in the background. This is almost like cooperative multitasking which is what Windows 3.1 (remember that?) had. Preemptive multitasking is doing it the right way.

Here’s one ugly reality: The iPhone 4’s antennas are the metals bits on the sides. Your hands can interfere with the signal and in areas of low signal strength, can result in dropped calls.

Here’s another ugly reality: The iPhone 4 has two glass sides compared to previous iPhones. Gorilla glass or not, it has twice the chance of breaking if it falls.

But then I guess Apple’s target market don’t really care much about these things.

still superior in contrast ratio, color reproduction and response time.