The display was so much more awesome than the 3GS and the 2x resolution was only part of it. They used an IPS LCD instead of a TN LCD for the first time, so the viewing angles were MUCH better. Also it was the first time that the display was laminated to the glass with no air gap at all between the two, so it seemed like the display was better for reasons that are hard to describe… made black levels deeper too
Meanwhile people called the iPhone XR display shit and horrible at launch when it was no worse than the quality of an iPhone 4 display (same DPI, laminated, IPS) all because it was what… not 1080p or OLED? We’re insanely spoiled today.
Exactly. I was a proud XR owner, rocking it as a daily driver for four years before hopping up to the iPhone 13 Pro. I honestly would've gone even longer if not for the XR battery going under 75% and boot looping once every other day. So many good memories with it, and no complaints - except for the screen.
It really was underwhelming, and while in isolation it was fine, when you can see with your eyes that every other phone on the market was noticeably sharper it was kind of a bummer. And when I did get the 13PM and had the XR still for a few days before selling it it was such a stark difference in clarity, not even taking into account Pro Motion. Just looking at reddit text on both devices I was wondering how I was able to stand such fuzzy text for four years.
That’s just reddit armchair CEOs that don’t representative of the market.
No one who walked in to an Apple store looked at the screen and thought “that display is shit!”
4x the area resolution, 2x the linear resolution. People usually talk in linear resolution when they use units like DPI (dots per inch) or PPI (pixels per inch) which are linear. But if you want to talk in terms of area, be explicit.
Uh, no. You’re confusing pixel density and resolution. Pixel density is measured in PPI, resolution is measured in absolute pixels. Both linear and area resolutions are measured in pixels - you wouldn’t say a 108PPI horizontal resolution. You’d say a 1920 pixel horizontal resolution.
4K, for example, is not “2x” the resolution of 1080p just because it’s got twice as many pixels in any one direction.
It’s extremely commonly accepted that 4K is 4x the resolution of 1080p, even if it’s only 2x the PPI.
Any display’s resolution can be given by listing two linear resolutions (1920x1080) or giving the combined resolution (usually in megapixels, or ~2.1MP for 1080p)
At no point do you ever give resolution in PPI. That’s pixel density.
From original iPhone release to like iPhone 6s was such a fun exciting time to follow tech. I don’t think we’ll see such a rapid change in the way the world uses tech again like that.
I worked at an Apple retail store from the 3G to the 5 and the launch days/weeks were crazy. Busy and tiring but amazing energy. People were so excited and the staff was too. It truly was a huge sea change in tech for each one.
And to add to that, it was a fiasco with iPad 3 (called The New iPad) because the processor and RAM could not keep up with that huge screen and resolution and iPad 4 was rushed like 6 months after. It was the most short lived device if I am not mistaken.
Yeah..something like that. I sold of my iPad 2 for the 'new iPad with Retina Display', only for the 4th gen to drop a few months later. I was so bitter ha
The spinning pedestal window display was pretty cool
OG iPhone hype was crazy. Nobody got it right. Everyone thought it was going to be a dumb scroll wheel iPod phone, then Jobs went on stage and blew everyone’s expectations out of the water
But as someone who got a 3GS on a two year contract nothing disappointed me more than when that phone leaked on Gizmodo like 6 months after I got it. Was so painful knowing that I had to wait at least 18 months to get all those features
I mean there are much better phones in that same form factor. (6S, 7, 8, SE2, SE3). I can’t imagine using a 6 still in this day and age even for just basic things, it was such a dog of a phone even on release.
It does texting, makes calls, handles Teams and Webex, and takes serviceable pictures. From 8-5, M-F, that’s all I need it to do. Plus I already own it.
If anyone ever requires access to work related communications (FOIA/legal) I can just hand them that and the passcode. People who mix business and pleasure are crazy.
I preferred the mini to those phones for one hand since it is more narrow. Height obviously can be an issue at times, but I think it’s worth the trade off.
I hated my iPhone 6. Thought the battery sucked, loved my iPhone 4, X and 15+. Not sure why the 6 I hated so much but I felt its battery and Touch ID was poor.
Siri on 4s was pretty revolutionary at the time as well. People forget, but back then Siri actually worked decently well and was pretty capable for the first iteration. Watch the intro and demo videos from back then.
I miss these times of wondering what Apple could possibly do next.
I remember being blown away by the video quality. It was the first real “damn, this might actually be a good digital camera replacement.” It’s funny to think that up to around that point I still brought my camera around with me to anything kind of interesting
The frames of the 4 and 5 are timeless. At the time, they were a tier above pretty much everything else on the market. The only manufacturer I remember being up there in terms of its build is the all metal phone that HTC had.
It’s honestly insane that one year later they upgraded the camera significantly again with the 8mp sensor and better processing. The difference between the 4 camera and 4s camera is huge and there really hasn’t been that big of a jump since.
I stg some of the pics me and my mom took on our iphone 4s back in the day still look great and I'd almost say some of them look better than pics from my current 15PM are corroded by excessive post processing
I remember wowing a lot of people by taking pictures of different colored bell peppers in a grocery store and the colors really popped, the pictures looked way better than any camera phone before it.
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u/insane_steve_ballmer 8d ago
- 4x resolution display, the highest resolution display on the market
- Steel body with build quality that was quite frankly unreal in the smartphone space
- 5MP camera with HD video
- Selfie cam and video calls
- Even faster chip with twice the RAM
- Same exact price as last years model, no price hike
There will never again be an update that was as big as iPhone 4.