iPhone 3G S — Apple Delivers Mobile Video to the Masses
Lots of smartphones have lots of features, and as Steve Jobs has said in the past — many people don’t even know about them, much less use them.
With the original iPhone, Apple popularized mobile web browsing, and the iPhone 3G too that to previously unseen levels (and AT&T has the data network woes to prove it). The App Store made getting and using mobile applications so ridiculously easy that 50,000 now fill the store and over 1 billion have been downloaded.
So now Apple is set to take on mobile video.
Like previous efforts, mobile video isn’t new. Many smartphones have been able to shoot video for many years. Likewise, the Flip Mino and similar pocket video camera have become media darlings. But as with most things Apple, the iPhone 3G S is set to make shooting, editing, and sharing videos not only more convenient, but easier and likely more popular than ever.
Think about it: the video camera will be with you everywhere you have a phone. It will be constantly connected. And it will be integrated with not only MMS and MobileMe, but with the 800lbs gorilla of video — YouTube.
Hey, dad, here’s your son making that soccer goal 5 min ago. Hey, sis, here’s Steve Jobs totally ordering a smoothy at Whole Foods! Hey, air force, here’s that flying saucer that keeps buzzing my cattle ranch!
June 8th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
It’s nice to see Apple finally bringing the feature set up to par! Because it was inexcusable for it to be without this far.
But with this said, I wonder on what level the video editor will be. I had a video editor on my W800. And you could do some pretty fine editing on it…and it wasn’t even a smartphone. So I’m eager to see the level of editing it has.
June 8th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
im a little mad that this feature wont be available on the 3.0 update . . . i know that the picture wont be as crisp, but i would still really like the feature . . . and i don’t see any reason to upgrade just for a couple features features . . .
June 8th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Fixed minor typo for ya!
Seriously, I’m pretty jazzed about this capability. Its about the only hardware leak that panned out.
Hey Rene: How bout a mega article of predictions and sources. Spread sheet style. Assign points to sources so we know who to believe next time.
Include those making definitive statements here on these blog postings as well as those loud sources that surfaced across the net and were echoed here.
June 8th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
MEH!!!
June 8th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Maybe a little less breathlessness over the video feature is in order. My God, I could already do this on my Treo 650, what, 5 years ago? Correcting a rather egregious lack of function is hardly something Apple deserves a lot of cheers for.
June 8th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
@Icebike: But didn’t Gruber just pretty much nail it? Laptops and all. He nailed laptops last year as well. Can we even call it predictions any more?
@Sean Peters: I could do it on my Treo 600 with 3rd party software. I had a touch screen too, and email. It’s not the features Apple adds, its the way they add them. Getting video off my Treo was a chore. Converting it was as well. Editing it required desktop software.
Apple is seldom first to market, but they are often the first to mass appeal and adoption.
June 8th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
@Rene: Yes, Gruber was reading Schiller’s notes. He’s about the only guy who got it (mostly) right.
He was late to the party, but he brought the best beer.
The rest of the image leakers, feature hypers, grab-shot photoshoppers should be put on TiPb’s wall-of-shame list for subsequent releases. We ought to remember who jerked our chain from one instant to the next.
The Italian site, with its fake photos should be top of the list. The Rodgers Rep, the AppleWorker, InsideInfo, all those people who post definitive statements like they were hiding under Steve Job’s bed should be remembered.
Its fun to speculate and guess, as long as its stated that way. Everybody is so bummed about the new hardware because it came nowhere near the general consensus, that consensus built of everyone pretending to be in the know.
TiPb made note on all of the stories it posted that they were questionable at best. Yet some became the generally accepted truths. People seemed to ignore the fact that the stories were clearly stated as rumor. Matt finish, no silver band: Gospel!
Its good for TiPb traffic to post these stories, but in the end, do we do ourselves a dis-service? Do we build dissatisfaction? Was there a time we would have taken MMS, Copy/Paste and Notifications and LIKED IT?
Would we have been happy double memory and Double speed, and way better camera with no decrease in battery life if we had not convinced ourselves there was a front facing cam, 802.11n, and new styling?
I don’t know. But the consensus in the forums seems to be Epic Fail!
June 9th, 2009 at 4:58 am
Sadly, I was /already/ doing this on my Jailbroken 3G almost as soon as the jailbreak was available. What’s /really/ sad is that Apple haven’t seen fit to enable the feature on the 3G, albeit with a less capable camera. I face either having to rejailbreak and hope that the developer will upgrade to 3.0 compatibility or to get a 3G-S.
June 9th, 2009 at 8:37 am
I found this little tidbit under the MMS section on the website for upgrading to iPhone OS 3.0.
“Even tap to snap a picture or shoot a video right inside Messages.”
The site I found this on was geared towards those who already have an iPhone:
“Already have an iPhone? Make it even better with great new features…”
Perhaps it is wishful thinking that some form of video capabilities will be available for the iPhone 3G…
…Perhaps not!
June 9th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
@ Bill Taroli: I’m pretty sure that it was apples plan all along to have people upgrade to 3G S for video and voice control even though the current 3G is perfectly capable . . . they’ll sell less of the $99 iPhone 3G and more of the 3G S just based on the video feature though. I’m sure there will be 3G phones sitting on the shelves gathering dust while the 3G S will fly off those same shelves.
who knows maybe later in the year in an effort to get rid of the rest of the iPhone 3G stock apple will unlock the video recording feature . . . i highly doubt it though.
June 9th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Phil Schiller showed how video lives on the phone “right next to your photos.” Does that mean videos will import to your iPhoto library when you synch? How do we get them into iMovie, and will they be full camcorder quality?
June 17th, 2009 at 1:16 am
what is the resolution/pixel size on it?
June 17th, 2009 at 9:49 am
So what, we’re ‘forced’ to buy the 3G S if we want to do video now? Is this just one more reason for people to want to jailbreak their current 3G phones in order to do video???? Sure, 3G’s camera isn’t great, and the quality’s almost 5 years behind. 3G S’s camera is about 2 years behind avg quality(at least from Japan’s point of view)… If a jailbreak can let the 3G do video, why can’t they just include the ability in the 3.0 update for the 3G??? Sure, it won’t be great, but it’s better than nothing, especially if one is LOCKED into some stupid contract and can’t upgrade to a 3G S.. It all stinks of shady business practices…