Intent Lynx

All about iPhone nano

2008-12-30T08:19:00.007-05:00

Many of you heard, there will be an announcement of the iPhone nano at the MacWorld in January. Also Vaja, a case manufacturer, has an iPhone nano in their lists (via MacRumors).

But how will it look like and what is included as Features? I want to give you my own theories:

Features

I think that it will have a slower CPU than the iPhone and no OpenGL compatible graphics. More on that later.

I don't think that the iPhone nano will have a camera, so we leave that (1 less app on the Homescreen).

As a mobile Phone it will have Bluetooth and i think it will also have wireless networking and EDGE (minimum, I think 3G could be possible too).

Surfin' the web on the iPhone nano: normal websites will be very difficult to read, but i think that the iPhone optimized websites as they currently exist will work on it very well.

But if it is really "nano" which means it will be a little bit smaller than the original, the screen will be smaller too. A smaller screen will make it very difficult to type on the on-screen keyboard.

What has to happen if you can surf the web and write SMS with it?

For writing SMS it would be enough to have a dialer field (12 Buttons, 3x4) as on a normal cellphone and T9 writing Engine, this should work very well for SMS, but for surfing the web it could be possible with the dialer field, but it wouldn't be very comfortable and an on-screen keyboard as the "big" iPhone have would be to big or if it gets scaled down, it would be difficult to type on it, no idea on that, maybe a handwriting recognition.

As it is an Apple product, it will have the iPod App to listen to music and watch movies and podcasts.

Will their be apps for the iPhone nano?

I think there will be apps and some games, but no games or apps where you always have to put your fingers on screen the whole time, this would cover to much of the screen, but games like Sneezies or Tower Defense Games and ToDo Apps etc will work as you just look at the screen and sometimes you just tap on it. Games like Real Football 2009 wouldn't work so no OpenGL needed.

Accelerometer?

As the iPod nano has one, the iPhone nano will have one to

Appearance

How will the iPhone nano look like?

Basically it will look like the current iPhone 3G, black or white plastic covers on the back (as it's Apple it would be nano-chromatic, but iPhone would just be black and white), the screen will be smaller (as it is called "nano"), Homescreen will have 3x4 icons and not 4x5 icons.

Icons on the first page after a fresh new installation

Homescreen

SMS
Calendar
Photos
YouTube
Stocks
Maps
Weather
Clock
Calculator (no scientific mode)
(Notes)
Settings
iTunes
(AppStore)

Dock

Phone
(Mail)
(Safari)
iPod

This would make 13-17 icons. Notes, Mail and Safari are in brackets, because I don't know if they will work on a small screen, because of the text input.

All the informations here are just ideas, no real data from Apple or some insider, just thoughts of mine.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T18:05:00.001-05:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

Possibilities of Teamspeak 3 Engine

2008-12-21T14:46:00.003-05:00

Teampeak 3 is now in an closed alpha phase and an SDK will be send out to developers very soon.
I took a look at the specs of Teamspeak 3, because Teamspeak 2 is great and I don't know what to improve there.
The Teamspeak developers created a completely new architecture and improved the sound quality, but the coolest new feature I have found was 3D Sound.

Introducing 3D Sound

TeamSpeak 3 now features fully integrated 3D Sound support which allows for spatial placement of sound effects and audio streams. This creates the illusion of a sound source being placed anywhere in three dimensional space, including behind, to the left of, to the right of, above, or below the listener. The possibilities and applications of 3D Sound are virtually endless with TeamSpeak 3.

I think that this Feature could bring a new experience to the gaming community.
If game developers use the TS3 SDK to include the technology into their games for multiplayer matches it could give the gamer more realism to create tactics.

Imagine this: You are playing an upcoming part of Call of Duty, Battlefield or Counter-Strike. This games have in-game voice communication, but this in-game voice is 3D!
What does that mean? All the team-members in your closer range are loud and clearly to understand and if you get away from a team-member, his voice is getting more quite.
But you can't just hear your team-members, no! Also the enemy around the corner talking to his people can be heard by you.

But what's about communication over the battlefield?

I know, in most cases you want to talk to all your team-members over the whole battlefield. So lets introduce a "walkie"-key. You press a button to use walkie-talkie communication as you would press it in games of the present and all your team-members can hear you, but even the enemy around the next corner can understand you, not all enemies, just the ones which are close to you.

This also stops this "voice-spamming" you maybe know from all games with in-game voice. All the kiddies are talking and you can't concentrate on the gameplay. With 3D Sound and the idea I explained here, all this stops, everybody who talks to much will be virtually killed and can't get his score points, just as it would be in real life.

Even the Hardware wouldn't be the problem.

Round about 90% of gamer I know own a 5.1 Headset, but even with a stereo-headset all this would work. You just can't hear sounds from behind or in front of you, just left and right, but distance will be recognized by the different volumes.

Intent Lynx gone Live

2008-12-04T18:11:00.000-05:00

Maybe some of you know my german Blog, but the internet is more than german.

I decided to create an english speaking blog to get a bigger audience.

I hope you'll find interesting posts here. For the my german fellas out there: the german blog will still exist, check both blogs, some things will be posted just on one of the two blogs, important things will be found on both.