Video calling is finally possible with the brand new iPhone 4. With just a WiFi connection, you can use FaceTime to video chat with others.
FaceTime works as soon as you turn your iPhone on, no set-up is required. Using FaceTime is easy. If you want to start a video call with someone, just go to their information in your contacts list and tap on the FaceTime button. If you are already on a call with them and you want to switch to video, all you have to do is tap the FaceTime button on the screen. When you do this, an invitation pops up on the other person’s screen asking if they want to have a video call with you. When they tap the accept button, the video call begins. By just simply tapping another button, you can switch between the front- and rear-facing camera. FaceTime works in both portrait and landscape modes, so you can let the other person see nearly everything.
The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference begins today in San Francisco, and it is highly expected that the CEO of Apple Inc, Steve Jobs, will release the newest generation of iPhone. Jobs is the keynote speaker and will kick off the WWDC at 10 am, PST.
I will update on the WWDC and post about the new releases, if any, that Steve Jobs announces.
A new app for the iPhone and iPod touch allows you to take your spoken words and turn them into email, text messages, update social networking statuses, search the web, or dial your phone. Vlingo is a great voice recognition app. Jeffery Battersby, a writer for Macworld.com stated, “I was able to speak to the app and have it recognize exactly what I was saying with virtually no correction. And the more time I spent with the free app from Vlingo, the better it was able to recognize what I was saying.”
As shown in the picture, there is a Press & Speak button that you have to push in order to make Vlingo listen to what you’re saying. When you do this, Vlingo takes your recording and sends it to the servers, where your speech is translated into text and then is sent back to the app. The app responds to four commands- Find, Social Update, Search, and Call.
Find lets you use Google maps to search for a certain location, also shown in the picture. Social Update allows you to update Facebook and Twitter statuses. The Search command lets you use certain search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing to perform web searches. With the Call command, the app will select and call your chosen contact.
Vlingo is free for the four features above, but for $9.99, you can get two more feautures that can be very handy- email and SMS Paste. Email and SMS paste allow you compose a long text message or email without having to type the message on the screen. To finish any of Vlingo’s text sending options, at least one button has to be pushed, which spoils any ideas of hands-free texting that you might have had in mind. Battersby also says, “Vlingo offers great voice recognition capabilities and proves to be a fantastic tool for hands-on, spoken text and e-mail messages, but it’s not a truly hands-free app and is subject to many of the limitations and dangers of using your phone when your eyes should be somewhere else.”
The iPhone OS 4.0 Beta 4 has yet to come out, but as with the iPhone 4G, the iPhone OS 4.0 release is very anticipated. There are many rumors of new features that will be on these two phones. Three of these predicted features for the iPhone OS 4.0 are: tethering, a changeable home screen, and more options for messaging.
Data tethering should be appearing on the new iPhone. Data tethering is available on iPhones overseas, and comes with a $15 per month charge for 3GB of data, on top of your $30 per month unlimited data plan.
The home screen on iPhones has those apps that you just can’t delete. The clock, weather, and stocks will all be grouped into one button: Utilities. This allows more customizing to be possible and for other apps to take the place of those three. It’s also rumored that the black background on the home screen will be able to be changed to an available wallpaper already on the phone, making the home screen a little less bland.
The last “new feature” is the different options for messaging. You can now show a preview of a SMS or MMS message, repeat alert, toggle MMS and group messaging, toggle subject field viewer, and limit character count. If all of the rumors are true, the iPhone OS 4.0 will be a great phone to have.
OK, well maybe not this very minute but it is most likely Apple will be introducing their new baby at the 12:00 pm Central Standard Time! Can you imagine the line that has formed outside the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco to view what Apple is calling, the ‘Latest Creation’ event.
I’ve spent my morning trying to find a website that will be streaming the live event and believe this site may actually provide a live feed. Woo hoo!
And last but not least…here are just a few of the specs I believe will be on the new tablet:
- Processor: 2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
- 64 GB Flash Drive
- 667 MHz DDR2 2 GB Memory
- 9.6” Multi-touch (widescreen) display
- Mac OS X 10.6 Software with touch-enabled interface
Video calling is finally possible with the brand new iPhone 4. With just a WiFi connection, you can use FaceTime to video chat with others.