Hi, Remember you can turn the display brightness down.
Regards, alex, On 15-Jun-09, at 2:52 PM, Josh de Lioncourt wrote: > > > One thing to keep in mind, though, is that most people only need or > want a couple of those devices to carry around with them. I think the > iPhone will definitely serve as a replacement for many devices for a > large number of users. Like anything else, it will depend on the needs > of the individual. > > For myself, I expect that the iPhone will work well as a book reader > (i.e. Victor Reader Stream or BookPort), if not immediately then in > short order. I do not feel those devices are good value for your > money, so have never been willing to plunk down the cash for them. The > iPhone will be an excellent alternative for me. > > Will the iPHone fulfill everyone's dreams? I seriously doubt it. I > think it will depend on what you need from a mobile device. The > battery issue is neither here nor there, as it is a problem with any > device of this nature. For audio output, the iPhone's battery life is > comparable to an iPod, so I think, overall, the life of the charge > will be no better or worse than it would be otherwise. Again, this > comes back to the individual user's needs and habbits. > > Just a few cents to ponder. > > On Jun 15, 2009, at 10:46 AM, Gary W. Kelly wrote: > >> >> Hi, >> >> Kara is correct. For those of you attended CSUN in March, and recall >> the iVisit demonstration of SeeStar and SeeScan--well, you were >> watching a camera cellphone with less than 3 megapixels. It could >> identify money, and while it is limited in how small print can be, it >> is surprisingly good. >> >> The difficulty for developers for the iPhone is the "crowd at the >> door". There are so many developers with good ideas, that Apple is >> limited in how much attention they can give individual developers. >> This is both good and bad news. It means that the iPhone will not >> have everything at once, but it also means that once the flow of new >> widgets and systems start, it will flow well for a long time. >> >> The new iPhone has 256 mb of memory--double the current models, and a >> 600 mhz processor. Even so, it will have difficulty doing the heavy >> lifting of processing OCR, or even doing recognition tasks. The >> iVisit approach revealed at CSUN, depends on a data channel to >> connect >> to a desk server to do that processing intensive work. It is likely >> that will remain just as true of future iPhones for a while. >> >> Since some of the desirable applications will take a couple of years >> to have available to the public, there is plenty of time for an >> iPhone >> upgrade by then. Remember, the life cycle of a cellphone is >> typically >> 18 months. >> >> The greater issues with doing any kind of recognition with a camera >> on >> a cellphone have to do with the human factors of how to aim the >> camera, and know the image is in the field. The process requires a >> remote server to do the heavy lifting of recognition if you want more >> than minimal performance. This means a data plan, and reception >> issues. Even at 600 mhz, and 256 mb memory, resources are scant for >> serious OCR on the phone. Think of doing that back in 1999 on your >> PC. >> >> Another note of reality for this discussion is to realize that >> iPhones >> now are notorious for being power hungry. If one uses an iPhone as >> many typical users do, the battery does *not* last through the day. >> There are iPhone kits to provide portable power on the go, to >> recharge >> the iPhone. >> >> The battery is the weak component. Yes, it would be wonderful to have >> all those hardware gadgets in one iPhone package, but currently, you >> can only expect to do that for about half a day. If you want to use >> your phone after that, you will need to get more power for it. It is >> not currently realistic to carry around your phone, and ask it to >> be a >> cellphone, a portable document reader, an email reader, book reader, >> music player, GPS navigator, money/object recognizer, color >> identifier, bar code/RFID reader, etc, and last for 10-12 hours a day >> while you are on the go, too. >> >> There are real trade-offs that will have to be made, and that >> balancing act takes time to play out. I am currently participating >> in >> a study of "best practices" in cellphone design for persons who are >> blind. We are finding that few phones running MobileSpeaks can >> survive a day without a recharge. Cellphone companies fudge their >> numbers by turning out the backlight in 2 seconds, as on the >> BlackJack >> 2, and cutting system resources to the bone to make that 8 hours they >> want to advertise. When we go in, and reset it so it can work with >> MobileSpeaks, the additional overhead takes a big toll. Just as the >> manuals say--running bluetooth uses more power, so does MobileSpeaks, >> or any other screen reading system. GPS uses more power, and those >> cameras eat power at an incredible rate. In my work with one >> application on a Mogul, I could drain the battery in about 2 hours at >> most. >> >> Relax, be patient, and enjoy Snow Leopard when it arrives. >> It may take time for iPhones, or any other phone to catch up to our >> dreams and desires. >> >> Gary >> >> >>> > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. 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