6/25/2010
By Carlos Guillen, Semiconductor Analyst

Apple Season All Year Round

Whoever said that apple season occurred just in the fall was clearly mistaken, that is because Apple launches occur all year round. Just yesterday Apple launched its ripe iPhone 4, a smart-phone that has caused massive lines in Japan, Germany, France, the U.K., and the U.S. Even before this phone was released, 600,000 people had already made reservations to get one of these must have gadgets. Everyone else lined up to try to get one if supply permitted. The word is that this new iPhone sold out in just hours after being offered at the stores, and now even those that try to order one online will not receive it until sometime in the middle of July.

The iPhone 4 is simply bar none and, of course, technology like this does not come cheap. The 16GB model will sell for $200 a pop and the 32GB model will sell for $300 with a new 2-year contract with AT&T. Sounds kind of pricy, but this is the crème de la crème of the smart phone world. The iPhone 4 sports ungraded features including 512mb of RAM and Apple's new A4 1GHz processor, based on ARM processor architecture. This is more powerful than some PCs just over three years ago; imagine that, a PC on the palm of your hand.

Some of the highlights of iPhone 4 include the sleeker form factor, the sharper display, front camera, and the beefier battery. The new iPhone has two glass slabs, front and back, wrapped by a stainless-steel band (the antenna). The flat-glass back is reportedly 30 times stronger than plastic, and overall the phone is 24 percent thinner than its predecessor, the 3GS. The phone simply looks solid and elegant. The 3.5-inch "retina" display features a resolution of 960 by 640 pixels, which represent four times as many pixels as those in the 3GS. The display is called retina since images are so sharp that it is impossible to see the pixels with the naked eye. The iPhone 4 also features two cameras, a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and a lower resolution VGA unit that faces the user. With the front-facing camera and clever new software called FaceTime, Apple has brought simple, high-quality video calling to mobile phones. However, for the time being, this feature will only be available over Wi-Fi among iPhone 4 owners. Users can easily switch to FaceTime in the middle of a call and also toggle between the front and back cameras. Another major hardware improvement is the battery, which is significantly larger than that of the 3GS and boasts a total of 7 hours of talk time compared to 5 hours in the 3GS.

Of course, nothing is perfect and there are some issues. One is that the Screen appears to have a yellowish blotch, and the second is that the reception appears to vary depending on how you grab the phone. As far as the yellow blotch is concerned, forums say that this discoloration is thought to be related to an adhesive used in affixing components underneath the screen and that the problem should go away as the adhesive evaporates. The second problem, however, is a bit more concerning. Apparently the phone has two antennae around its perimeter, one for Wi-Fi and the other for wireless service. Both of these antennae are gapped so they do not make contact, but a user with wet or sweating hands can bridge the gap causing serious interference that reduces reception from five bars to one. The fix for this so far is to get a cover for the phone, or to simply not bridge the gap on the side of the phone.

Despite the glitches, this phone is simply amazing, and I expect it to continue selling like hotcakes. The engineers at Apple have once again outdone themselves and have hit another one out of the park.

Carlos Guillen
Wall Street Strategies