Practical questions - iPhone 3G

ilLegalBeagle · 06-12-2007, 01:53 PM

Alright, up front I will confess that I am not a phone geek, nor am I an Apple geek. I worked for 10 years in IT on Windows and Linux network resources.

Having said that, I might want to buy this stupid phone, but I want to know a few basic things about it that aren't directly addressed in the hype materials out there.

First... What types of video codecs will it support? If I download something encoded in Divx or Xvid, can I move it to the iPhone and view it? Or will it require me to re-encode it using another codec?

Second, after Steve Jobs basically killed 3rd party widget development yesterday (for the foreseeable future, anyway), what can we expect for application options? Is there something available to show us the kinds of applications (not scripts or webapps) that Apple would make available? For example, with other PDA-capable devices, I need only go to a couple of websites to find a particular scientific calculator program. Or more common in my case, if I want to read a particular legal article or court case, I just download it onto my PDA and read it with the appropriate application. How do I do that with the iPhone? Do I get the choice of what type of app to use for the document reader? Is there a list somewhere of the things available?

Finally, how open will the platform be? With PocketPCs, we could easily get to the first level of OS settings (network settings, performance settings, etc.), and with some technical knowledge, we could get into the second level of settings (RAM optimization, bus/processor speed settings), but we could never get to the core OS functions. I get the impression with the iPhone that we will likely be VERY limited (meaning locked down) with regard to the operating system and settings. Any word on this?

ilLegalBeagle

jpmihalk · 06-12-2007, 02:11 PM

All great questions... of which the last one is the easiest to answer. Apple (Steve Jobs) has said that one of their goals is to provide the best security they can for the iphone, so it does not suffer the same weaknesses of the Windows Mobile and Palm phones that it will compete against. So... yes, it will be very locked down.

As for the other questions, they are yet to be answered publicly.

ilLegalBeagle · 06-12-2007, 03:14 PM

OK, so I'm not missing anything... It's just not out there yet. I'll wait. I'm not one to want the thing the second it goes on sale. I think I'll let the techies work the kinks out and find out just how much wiggle room there is in the thing.

I fully expect that within a week after release, we'll see hacker information out there telling us how to "open" up, or at least "loosen" up, some of the features in the phone. With a ported version of OSX on it, there MUST be some way to install applications. It's just going to take some enterprising hacker with some Red Bull, Cheetos and about sixteen hours of no sleep.

ilLegalBeagle

ArtGuy · 06-12-2007, 03:46 PM

You'll need to encode your video as an mp4 or h.264 file. There are a few limits regarding size and bitrate as well. I use visualhub on the mac to encode any video format to another and it works very, very well. I have a cowon A2 audio/video PMP, and it only plays divx or avi files, so I easily convert my ripped dvd's back and forth depending on what I plan to play them on.

Hope this helps!

Kurt

You should be able to find the compatible file formats on the apple site in the ipod/itunes section

ArtGuy · 06-12-2007, 03:49 PM

Video formats supported: H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 768 Kbps, 320 by 240 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

ilLegalBeagle · 06-12-2007, 04:00 PM

Thanks for that info, ArtGuy! Now, I just need to go find an easy-to-use converter/encoder for my videos.

I download documentaries from the web a lot. Also, I need to start looking at how to encode my Tivo recordings that I move around to be compatible with the MP4 format. That should be fun. Proprietary format to proprietary format... Hrmm....

ilLegalBeagle