John Gruber has, as usual, nailed down some excellent points in his detailed look at the new iPhone 4.
…it’s more than just the pixel resolution — it’s that the LCD is so much closer to the surface of the glass. Like pixels on glass rather than pixels under glass. This is the result of a new manufacturing process Apple has pioneered. No other company gives a shit about things like this.?
I saw my first iPhone 4 in the wild just a few days ago and what Gruber says about the display is 100% correct. The difference is immediately noticeable, even from a distance away. The nearness of the pixels to the surface of the screen and the overall quality of the display itself combine to make the new iPhone something completely different and completely delicious.
Both aesthetically and tactilely, the iPhone 4’s glass back is very pleasing. It has a 2001-monolith-like symmetry. But as a heavy iPhone user since day one, I’m finding it slightly disconcerting. I’ve always carried my iPhone the same way: front right pants pocket, with the glass toward my body, so that if my leg hits something or something hits my leg, the back of the iPhone would take the impact, not the glass. Now it’s glass on both sides, and what keeps happening is that I reach into my pocket to take it out, my fingers feel the smooth glass facing out?.
I too keep my phone, glass face in, in my left pocket for the very same reasons, but I also wonder, being someone who will not have a new iPhone in his pocket until sometime after the first of next year, how easy it is to know if you have the phone face out or in by touch in your pocket. With my 3GS I can tell immediately if I’ve been a bonehead.
Re: the use of Helvetica Neue as iPhone 4’s system font, I love it. Helvetica Neue is my hands down favorite for everything I do right now.
Aesthetically, this change is a win. Helvetica is a great typeface; long-time DF readers know I’m a huge fan of it, and the choice to use it for the iPhone’s system font is one of my favorite decisions in Apple history. But Helvetica Neue, subtle though its differences are, is a nice improvement. It is a more Helvetica-y Helvetica.?
Great coverage, as always, by John Gruber.
(Note to self: you only get Twitter mentions by John Gruber if you talk crap about him. Next time say something salacious just to piss him off…)