Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Camera and photos

The iPhone features a built in 2.0 mega pixel camera located on the back for still digital photos. It has no optical zoom, flash or auto focus, and does not support video recording. Version 2.0 of iPhone OS introduced the capability to embed location data in the pictures, producing decoded photographs.

The iPhone includes software that allows the user to upload, view, and e-mail photos. The user zooms in and out of photos by sliding two fingers further apart or closer together, much like Safari. The Camera application also lets users view the camera roll, the pictures that have been taken with the iPhone's camera. Those pictures are also available in the Photos application, along with any transferred from iPhoto or Aperture on a Mac, or Photo shop in Windows.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Multimedia

The layout of the music library is similar to that of an iPod or current Symbian S60 phones. The iPhone can sort its media library by songs, artists, albums, videos, play lists, genres, composers, pod casts, audio books, and compilations. Options are always presented alphabetically, except in play lists, which retain their order from tunes. The iPhone uses a large font that allows users to touch their selection. Users can rotate their device horizontally to access Cover Flow. Like on iTunes, it shows the different album covers in a scroll-through photo library. Scrolling is achieved by swiping a finger across the screen.

The iPhone supports gap less playback. Like the fifth generation iPods introduced in 2005, the iPhone can play video, allowing users to watch TV shows and films. Unlike other image-related content, video on the iPhone plays only in the landscape orientation, when the phone is turned sideways. Double tapping switches between wide-screen and full-screen video playback.

The iPhone allows users to purchase and download songs from the iTunes Store directly to their iPhone over Wi-Fi with the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, and as of Mac world San Francisco 2009, over the cellular data network.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Phone

The iPhone allows audio conferencing, call holding, call merging, caller ID, and integration with other cellular network features and iPhone functions. It only supports Voice dialing through third party applications and video calling is not supported at all.

The iPhone includes a visual voice mail (in some countries) feature allowing users to view a list of current voice mail messages on-screen without having to call into their voice mail. Unlike most other systems, messages can be listened to and deleted in a non-chronological order by choosing any message from an on-screen list. AT&T, O2, T-Mobile Germany, and Orange modified their voice mail infrastructure to accommodate this new feature designed by Apple.

A music ring tone feature was introduced in the United States on September 5, 2007. Users can create custom ring tones from songs purchased from the tunes Store for a small additional fee. The ring tones can be 3 to 30 seconds long from any part of a song, can fade in and out, pause from half a second to five seconds when looped, or loop continuously. All customizing can be done in tunes, and the synced ring tones can also be used for alarms. Custom ring tones can also be created using Apple's Garage Band software 4.1.1 or later (available only on Mac OS X) and third-party tools. Custom ring tones are not supported in some countries.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

TRS connector

A TRS connector (tip, ring, and sleeve) also called an audio jack, phone plug, jack plug, stereo plug, mini-jack, or mini-stereo, is a common audio connector. It is cylindrical in shape, typically with three contacts, although sometimes with two (a TS connector) or four (a TRRS connector).

It was invented for use in telephone switchboards in the 19th century and is still widely used, both in its original quarter-inch (6.3 mm) size and in miniaturized versions. The connector's name is an initialize derived from the names of three conducting parts of the plug: Tip, Ring, and Sleeve – hence, TRS.

In the UK, the terms jack plug and jack socket are commonly used for the respectively male and female TRS connectors.

In the U.S., a female connector is called a jack. The terms phone plug and phone jack are commonly used to refer to TRS connectors, but are also sometimes used colloquially to refer to RJ11 and older telephone plugs and the corresponding jacks that connect wired telephones to wall outlets. (The similar terms phonon plug and phonon jack refers to RCA connectors.) To unambiguously refer to the connectors described here, the diameter or other qualifier is often added, e.g. 1/4-inch phone plug", "3.5 mm phone jack, and balanced phone jack or stereo phone plug for the three-contact version.