What is swap?

Swap space is the area on a hard disk which is part of the Virtual Memory of your machine, which is a combination of accessible physical memory (RAM) and the swap space. Swap space temporarily holds memory pages that are inactive. Swap space is used when your system decides that it needs physical memory for active processes and there is insufficient unused physical memory available. If the system happens to need more memory resources or space, inactive pages in physical memory are then moved to the swap space therefore freeing up that physical memory for other uses. Note that the access time for swap is slower therefore do not consider it to be a complete replacement for the physical memory. Swap space can be a dedicated swap partition (recommended), a swap file, or a combination of swap partitions and swap
files.

Why do I need swap?

Memory consuming programs Sometimes, a large program (like MySQL) make the entire system need extra memory. A significant number of the pages used by these large programs during its startup may only be used for initialization and then never used again. The system can swap out those pages and free the memory for other programs or even for the disk cache. In these cases, swap will be used to help the system handle any extra load.

Hibernation (suspend-to-disk) The hibernation feature (suspend-to-disk) writes out the contents of RAM to the swap partition before turning off the machine. Therefore, your swap partition should be at least as big as your RAM size. The hibernation implementation currently used in Ubuntu, swsusp, needs a swap or suspend partition. It cannot use a swap file on an active file system.

Unforeseeable Circumstances Unforeseeable events can and will happen (a program going crazy, some action needing much more space than you thought, or any other unpredictable combination of events). In these cases, swap can give you an extra delay to figure out what happened, or to finish what you are working on.

Symptoms

MySQL is being slow and when we run programs like ‘top’ we can see that our process (or server) is using a large quantity of swap.

What is this affecting the MySQL performance ?

MySQL will change the way works since it will replace the internal algorithms to be optimized for Disk I/O due the navy use of swap. This will make the system slower.

What we can do ?

First we need to figure out how much swap is the system using and how much free memory does it have.

1) The first trick we can do is to drop disk caches, this will free some more memory:

echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

2) If we can move the swap into real memory (swap usage < free memory) we can run:

swapoff -a (to disable the swap usage, this will force to move data to memory)
swapon -a (will re-enable use of swap)

3) Check to see how aggressive is the system setup to use swap by using:

cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

I personally prefer to have this value around 10 (0 no not use swap  – 100 use swap)

to change this

edit /etc/sysctl.conf and add a new line “vm.swappiness=10“. Save the file and run

sysctl -f /etc/sysctl.conf

4) Make sure that mysql is allocating memory close to equal for each physical CPU (not core), you may check this by typing

numactl –hardware

due the NUMA architecture this may be one of the main issue why mysql is swapping in the first place.

Now, find the mysqld_safe file and open it with your editor, add the following line (after cmd=”$NOHUP_NICENESS”)

cmd=”/usr/bin/numactl –interleave all $cmd”

Now, when MySQL needs memory it will allocate it interleaved across all nodes, effectively balancing the amount of memory allocated in each node. This will leave some free memory in each node, allowing the Linux kernel to cache data on both nodes, thus allowing memory to be easily freed on either node just by freeing caches (as it’s supposed to work) rather than paging.

5) Edit my.cnf (or your mysql config file) to be a good match with the system (memory, buffers, threads) you’re running MySQL.

Hope that was helpful:

More resources:
The MySQL “swap insanity” problem and the effects of the NUMA architecture
Ubuntu SwapFAQ

Compile Ubuntu kernel

get the tools for building the kernel

apt-get -y install build-essential libncurses5-dev fakeroot kernel-package  linux-source

the kernel source code will be in /usr/src/

go to /usr/src and decompress the kernel

tar -xjf linux-source-2.6.28.tar.bz2

and make a symlink

ln -s /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.28 linux

now go the the kernel menu and select what options do you want to compile in your kernel

make menuconfig

next,  rebuild the kernel

cd /usr/src/linux
fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd --revision=subzero.1.0 kernel_image

Did you use mac ports, and after each update your ports are getting bigger and bigger ? Do you want to cleanup a few hundred of MB ? This is how you do it!

In order to see what is installed on your machine

port installed

to checkout the last version of the ports from the repository

sudo port -v selfupdate

howto update the ports

sudo port upgrade outdated

now to clean all the old version

sudo port clean --all installed

You can access a remote file system securely using sshfs and fuse which is a command to mount a remote filesystem encrypted through ssh.
This way you will be able to access remote files as if they were on you machine, just remember that if the connection between the computers is slow, the access will also be pretty slow

Package needed

sshfs
fuse-utils

Installation

Get the packages

For Debian: apt-get install fuse-utils sshfs
For Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install fuse-utils sshfs
For Fedora and Centos: yum install fuse-utils sshfs
For Mandriva: urpmi: urpmi fuse-utils sshfs


Next step is to mount the fuse module

modprobe fuse

Next create the mount point

mkdir /mnt/remote-fs
chown [your-user]:[your-group] /mnt/remote-fs/

Add yourself to the fuse group

adduser [your-user] fuse


Untill here all the command should be issued as root, now switch to your users and mount the remote filesystem.

sshfs remote-user@remote.server:/remote/directory /mnt/remote-fs/

It will now ask you accept the key if this is the first time you connect to that PC using ssh, and then the password, or only the password if this is not the first time you use ssh to connect to the remote server . That should be all.

The cool thing about this jailbrake is that you can revert any time (if you backup your device, please do that !!!) at your previous ‘official’ firmware from Apple.

Now while this jailbreak is safe and legal, we wonder how long it will take until this vulnerability (already ported to metasploit) may install ‘backdoors’ on your device (well, other then the ones from Apple).

Since Apple just released a 4.0.2 version of their firmware that fixes this vulnerability a question ramain … should I upgrade and loose the freedom and all the goodies I can get from the Cydia store (cydia.saurik.com), or remain with the jailbrake and risk that my device will be ‘takeover’ by some malicious page. Hmm … I guess I want a Open device, where I can install what I want from what store I want … and be safe … do you think this make sense ?

It seems that the iPhone 3G owners who upgraded to the new iOS4 are complaining that the iOS4 is killing the performance of their mobile phones, and they hope that they will see soon an fix from the company from Cupertino. Apple has reported that they begun an investigation about the issue since they have a lot of complains (people are reporting on their blogs about this all over the globe). So should you upgrade your iPhone 3G to the new iOS4 ? Probably not, just wait until the next iOS4 update.

If you own an iPhone and want to “jailbreak” it in order to install non-Apple-certified applications, good news – it’s now considered perfectly legal, according to the United States government.

Statement of the Librarian of Congress Relating to Section 1201 Rulemaking

Section 1201(a)(1) of the copyright law requires

This is the fourth time that I have made such a determination. Today I have designated six classes of works. Persons who circumvent access controls in order to engage in noninfringing uses of works in these six classes will not be subject to the statutory prohibition against circumvention.

As I have noted at the conclusion of past proceedings, it is important to understand the purposes of this rulemaking, as stated in the law, and the role I have in it. This is not a broad evaluation of the successes or failures of the DMCA. The purpose of the proceeding is to determine whether current technologies that control access to copyrighted works are diminishing the ability of individuals to use works in lawful, noninfringing ways. The DMCA does not forbid the act of circumventing copy controls, and therefore this rulemaking proceeding is not about technologies that control copying. Nor is this rulemaking about the ability to make or distribute products or services used for purposes of circumventing access controls, which are governed by a different part of section 1201.

In this rulemaking, the Register of Copyrights received 19 initial submissions proposing 25 classes of works, many of them duplicative in subject matter, which the Register organized into 11 groups and published in a notice of proposed rulemaking seeking comments on the proposed classes. Fifty-six comments were submitted. Thirty-seven witnesses appeared during the four days of public hearings in Washington and in Palo Alto, California. Transcripts of the hearings, copies of all of the comments, and copies of other information received by the Register have been posted on the Copyright Office’s website.

The six classes of works are:

(1) Motion pictures on DVDs that are lawfully made and acquired and that are protected by the Content Scrambling System when circumvention is accomplished solely in order to accomplish the incorporation of short portions of motion pictures into new works for the purpose of criticism or comment, and where the person engaging in circumvention believes and has reasonable grounds for believing that circumvention is necessary to fulfill the purpose of the use in the following instances:

(i) Educational uses by college and university professors and by college and university film and media studies students;

(ii) Documentary filmmaking;
(iii) Noncommercial videos

(2) Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.

(3) Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that enable used wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telecommunications network, when circumvention is initiated by the owner of the copy of the computer program solely in order to connect to a wireless telecommunications network and access to the network is authorized by the operator of the network.

(4) Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities, if:

(i) The information derived from the security testing is used primarily to promote the security of the owner or operator of a computer, computer system, or computer network; and
(ii) The information derived from the security testing is used or maintained in a manner that does not facilitate copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law.

(5) Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete. A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace; and

(6) Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling either of the book’s read-aloud function or of screen readers that render the text into a specialized format.

All of these classes of works find their origins in classes that I designated at the conclusion of the previous rulemaking proceeding, but some of the classes have changed due to differences in the facts and arguments presented in the current proceeding. For example, in the previous proceeding I designated a class that enable film and media studies professors to engage in the noninfringing activity of making compilations of film clips for classroom instruction. In the current proceeding, the record supported an expansion of that class to enable the incorporation of short portions of motion pictures into documentary films and noncommercial videos for the purpose of criticism or comment, when the person engaging in circumvention reasonably believes that it is necessary to fulfill that purpose. I agree with the Register that the record demonstrates that it is sometimes necessary to circumvent access controls on DVDs in order to make these kinds of fair uses of short portions of motion pictures.

Apple calls jailbreaking an “unauthorized modification of its software,” and has in the past released iPhone updates that render jailbroken phones inoperable. The new ruling will not stop the mobile giant from doing so in the future

Apple representative pointed out that jailbreaking an iPhone voided the warranty, and claimed that it could “severely degrade the experience” by making the phone unreliable and unstable. Still, whatever Apple says, you can now do whatever you want on your phone (as long as the software is legal) and the US gub’mint won’t stop you.

The ruling also said that it was legal to crack DRM on computer and videogames, provided that it was for the purpose of “testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities.” In other words, if your new DRM makes a user’s computer vulnerable to attacks, it’s fair game for people to breach it.

I believe that this is a big win for us (the people who don’t like limits on traffic, limits on what application you can install, limits how to use the phone and how to hold the phone ….) since we can explore this devices the way we want , without any of the producers limitations… we like the phones … you know … free.

First you need to install the python netifaces module:

On a debian system you can install the module like this:

sudo apt-get install python-netifaces

You’re done, now you can write the code:

from netifaces import interfaces, ifaddresses, AF_INET

for ifaceName in interfaces():
addresses = [i['addr'] for i in ifaddresses(ifaceName)[AF_INET]]
print ‘%s: %s’ % (ifaceName, ‘, ‘.join(addresses))

on my computer I have an output like this:

lo: 127.0.0.1
eth0: 1.1.1.1
eth1: 192.168.0.1

No Sense ?

An DB9/RJ45 adapter, free USB port, mac ports installed.

Installing

After the serial port is plugged in you USB port you would be able to see the adapter on Apple>About This Mac>More Info

Next we need some drivers for the adapter.

I found the serial mac driver on Future Technology Website under Virtual Serial Ports Section.

After I install the driver a new device is visible

Now the driver is ready and working.

Installing minicom (from ports)

sudo port install minicom

Howto setup minicom in order to connect to a serial port

sudo minicom –color=on -s

go to Serial port setup> and configure the serial port and data parity to look like this

Save the data (as default). and start the connection. Now you should be able to see the device on the other end of you serial connection, probably a Cisco.

RJ45 cable

This adapter works with the RJ45 serial port found on most Cisco routers. It also works on some Sun servers.
This is pretty much just like the crossover cable but with a different pinout:

1 – 6
2 – 5
3 – 3
4 – 8
5 – 7
6 – 4
7 – 1
8 – 2

- one side

- the other side

DB9 adapter

This is the trickiest part. In order to make your cable compatible with the largest number of serial devices possible, you need to combine a couple pins and split another one. Here is the pinout:

DB9 pin signal RJ45 pin color *
——- —— ——– —–
1 DCD 8 white
2 RxD 3 black
3 TxD 1 blue
4 DTR 5 green
5 SG 2 and 6 orange and yellow
6 DSR 8 white
7 RTS 4 red
8 CTS 7 brown
9 RI none

So our ethernet turned serial cable will be pinned:

1 TxD pair one
2 SG pair one
3 RxD pair two
4 RTS pair three
5 DTR pair three
6 SG pair two
7 CTS pair four
8 DSR/DCD pair four

* My DB9F/RJ45F modular adapters are colored blue, orange, black, red, green, yellow, brown, white (RJ45 1-8), but yours may not be. If yours are different, ignore the colors in the above pinout.

DB9 pins 2, 3, 4, 7, and 8 are easy. Just push the appropriate pin in the back of the DB9 connector until it snaps. Be careful not to get any of the pins mixed up because errors are a bit difficult to fix. I seem to remember having a skinny little tool to pop the pins back out again some years back, but I can’t find it anymore.

DB9 pin 5 needs two wires connected to it. Snip the pins off of the wires coming from RJ45 pins 2 and 6 (orange and yellow on mine), strip about 3 mm off the end of each, and crimp them together onto one of your spare pins.
wiring detail photo

RJ45 pin 8 has to connect to both 1 and 6 on the DB9 connector. Snip the pin off of the white wire, strip the end, cut about an inch of scrap CAT5 and pull out two of the white wires, strip both ends off of them, crimp a pin on each one, and splice all three loose ends together. You can break the end off of a spare pin and use it to crimp the three wires together. You can use the other two white wires from the inch of CAT5 for the second adapter.

Both of the DB9/RJ45 adapters should be wired exactly the same way, regardless of whether they will be used for DTE or DCE devices

The final product

That’s how our final custom cisco console cable should look:

In Cupertino, California, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced during the iPhone 4 press conference Friday that every iPhone 4 user will get a free Apple Bumper to help mitigate antenna problems. This will apply to every user worldwide who buys an iPhone through September 30. iPhone 4 owners who have already purchased one of the $30 bumpers will get a full refund. Users who don’t like the bumper solution and are still unhappy with the iPhone can bring it back for a full refund instead.

This will work only with Apple since iPhone 4 refunds don’t apply to AT&T contracts after 30 days.

When asked if that applied to users who wanted to get out of their AT&T contracts, Jobs said, “I believe so,” but that’s not actually the case.

“Our normal, 30-day return policy applies,” the AT&T spokesman said.

“We support [Apple's] decision to provide free cases to folks and to waive the usual re-stocking fee,” he continued. “We’re going to do the same.”

In addition to the free bumpers, Apple plans to issue a fix for the proximity sensor problem ( that is causing some users to accidentally hang up calls when they put the device up to their heads).

Seems that a few major problems are spotted with this new IPhone 4 model, but people are still buying the phone. I personally have the device and I am very happy with the phone, but I want all the problems to be fixed (if possible).

Let me finish with a quote that I really like from a video of Jonathan Mann’s “The iPhone 4 Antenna Song,” which includes the lyrics “If you don’t want an iPhone 4 don’t buy it. If you bought one and you don’t like it, bring it back … but you know you won’t.”

As a conclusion we really want to see how this problem will be solved, and how much can be fixed from the software. Maybe we will see also a hardware update next year.

Until then the software fix from Apple makes NO SENSE to us.

I will like to say “There is an app for that” makes no sense, but I will be wrong here. So did you search for an iPhone app that does something specific and you didn’t find any application ?

The video in question was made by Brian Maupin, a 25-year-old based in Kansas City, Missouri. For the past three and a half years he’s been working at Best Buy selling mobile phones. He’s probably not going to be doing that anymore as Best Buy has suspended him indefinitely and is currently taking the steps to terminate him, Maupin tells us. The reason? The video.

The video became so popular (it currently has nearly 1.3 million views on YouTube) that someone at Best Buy corporate saw it. They then put two-and-two together that it was an employee at one of their stores that made it, and the hammer came down. “They felt it disparaged a brand they carried (iPhone/Apple) as well as the store itself and were fearful of stockholders & customers being turned off to Best Buy Mobile,” Maupin says.

What’s ridiculous is that nowhere in the video does Maupin have anything indicating the fictitious store the iPhone buyer is walking into is a Best Buy. At the beginning, the cartoon employee identifies the store as “Phone Mart.” The character isn’t even wearing the signature Best Buy blue polo shirt — and they’re standing in an outdoor field with a pink tree.

In other words, nothing about this video seems to imply Best Buy in anyway. In fact, the only reason it will be tied to Best Buy now is thanks to this story.

Maupin says he was asked to quit, which he declined to do, and so they suspended him this morning telling him that he would most likely be terminated after they review it with HR. He expects the decision in the next day or two. “I issued a statement to them explaining that the video was intended to be comedic and hence, not taken seriously by them or all these stockholders & customers they are worried about [being] turned off to buying from them due to the video,” Maupin says in his defense.

Maupin isn’t sure how exactly Best Buy corporate knew to tie the video to him, but believes they did so because a couple other videos under his Tiny Watch Productions (a little indie film group he made with his friends) YouTube account featured videos referencing him and Best Buy. Maupin says he removed those videos at Best Buy’s request, but refuses to take down the EVO vs. iPhone videos because, again, they in no way reference Best Buy.

Regardless of whether he keeps his job or not (which he doesn’t expect to), Maupin is optimistic. “I see it all as a blessing in disguise. I’ve wanted to start my career in graphic design/animation for so long, I see this as my kick in the pants to go get it,” he says.

Source: TechCrunch

The 4 generation of iPhone is here. iPhone4 is one of the hottest gadgets around, has a new look, more functionality, more appeal. Will be this the ultimate phone for the next month ? Let’s take a look on this mobile

The Front

Looks very hot, apple seems to put his unibody style in every product. The front and back side was made from a new compound, a laminated glass “aluminosilicate glass” chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic, the glass is ultradurable and more scratch resistant than ever, witch seems to be “the same type used for windshield in modern helicopters”.

Still there are some people questioning the strength of the glass that sits on top of the unit’s aluminum frame, saying that is a design flaw that “will bite [Apple] in the future.” (iFixYouri).

We believe that the test is questionable.

The display is a multi-touch display senses your touch using electrical fields, it can register multiple touches at once to support advanced gestures such as pinch to zoom, two-finger tap, and more. The panel then transmits the information to the Retina display below it.

Called “Retina” because of it’s revolutionary 326 pixels per inch “more that the eye can see according to Apple” , the IPS (in-plane switching) technology is the the same technology used in the Apple LED Cinema Display and iPad to achieve a widerviewing angle than on typical LCDs, in theory means you can hold iPhone 4 almost any way you want and still get a brilliant picture.

The most practical is the front video camera, so you can have a “Facetime” (video conference over wifi). I’m dreaming of this since I have my first skype video call years ago. Adding a camera makes a lot of sens to me, hello anybody else ? Motorolla ? Samsung ? Nokia ?

How cool is that ? I think is awesome. This brings a value for the home users and business users since now you may have a video conference with your business partner.

The back

In the back we have no surprises , the same type of glass used in the front is used on back also, we also have a really nice camera (5 megapixel with a built-in flash LED).You can switch between the front end and back end camera anytime during a video call.

The Side

The phone frame is made from strong stainless steel seems very strong, the design of the frame it’s a little strange since the frame is broken in 3 pieces ? Strange … since you don’t expect this from a company like apple. We can see one line on the top and one on each side of the phone.

but after a while we figure out why, and this makes sense, the frame is also used as an antenna. Very ingenious … you can see in this picture that the left side is used for Bluetooth,Wi-Fi and GPS while the right side is used for UMTS and GSM.

The Core

As you can guess the iPhone is powered by a lion hard an A4 chip that is energy friendly and also introduces new functions: Quad band HSDPA/HSUPA, dual mic noise suppression, 802.11n Wi-Fi. Apple engineers designed the A4 chip to be a remarkably powerful yet remarkably power-efficient mobile processor. With it, iPhone 4 can easily perform complex jobs such as multitasking, editing video, and placing FaceTime calls. All while maximizing battery life. A4 also includes a built-in three-axis gyroscope. When paired with the accelerometer, it makes iPhone 4 capable of advanced motion sensing such as user acceleration, full 3D attitude, and rotation rate. Translation: More motion gestures and greater precision for an even better gaming experience.

Steve Jobs gyroscope presentation at Apple Developer Conference 2010.

Also you can watch the full presentation of iPhone 4 at Apple WWDC Conference 2010 here

NoSense ?

The iPhone 4 is no small thing to review. As most readers of Engadget are well aware, in the gadget world a new piece of Apple hardware is a major event, preceded by rumors, speculation, an over-the-top announcement, and finally days, weeks, or months of anticipation from an ever-widening fan base. The iPhone 4 is certainly no exception — in fact, it may be Apple’s most successful launch yet, despite some bumps on the road. We’ve already seen Apple and AT&T’s servers overloaded on the first day of pre-orders, the ship date for the next set of phones pushed back due to high demand, and die-hard fans in line outside of Apple locations a week before the phone is actually available. It’s a lot to live up to, and the iPhone 4 is doing its best — with features like a super-fast A4 CPU, a new front-facing camera and five megapixel shooter on the back, a completely new industrial design, and that outrageous Retina Display, no one would argue that Apple has been asleep at the wheel. So the question turns to whether or not the iPhone 4 can live up to the intense hype. Can it deliver on the promises Steve Jobs made at WWDC, and can it cement Apple’s position in the marketplace in the face of mounting competition from the likes of Google and Microsoft? We have the answers to those questions — and many more — in our full review, so read on to find out!

Hardware

Perhaps the most notable change with the new iPhone is the drastic industrial design overhaul — Apple seems to have completely rethought its strategy on how the phone should look and feel, and the results are nothing if not striking.

Industrial design

In his WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs likened the design of the iPhone 4 to that of a “beautiful, old Leica camera,” and as we’ve said before, he wasn’t off the mark. Instead of hewing to the curved, plasticky, silver-bezeled look of the iPhone 3G and 3GS, the company has turned the casing and face of the device into something decidedly more detailed and sophisticated. From the design aesthetic through to the actual build process, Jony Ive and his team have reset what we expect in an iPhone, coming up with something that clearly harkens back to the retro-future Braun designs of Dieter Rams. The iPhone 4 is made up of three basic parts: two pieces of smooth, strengthened glass, and a stainless steel band which wraps around the sides, top, and bottom of the phone. The effect is clean but not simple, and Apple has added little details, like altered volume buttons (what used to be a rocker is now separated into circular clickers labeled + and -), and notches in that metal band which serve to improve radio connections (more on that in a minute). The phone is noticeably thinner than the 3GS at .37 inches compared to .48 inches, but it weighs the same 4.8 ounces, making the whole package seem tighter and denser. It feels great in your hand, with good heft, although it might take a little time to get used to the lack of a rounded back if you’re coming from the 3G or 3GS.

We can’t overstate how high-end the design of the iPhone 4 is. The 3GS now feels cheap and chubby by comparison, and even a phone like the HTC Droid Incredible — which just came out — seems last-generation.

As we said, there are three main pieces of the phone, which together create an effect not wildly dissimilar to that of an ice cream sandwich. You know, but far pricier… and not edible. The face of the device is made up of extremely strong glass which Jony Ive says is “comparable in strength to sapphire crystal, but about 30 times harder than plastic.” A small slit for the earpiece and the front-facing camera are embedded in the glass above the display, with the familiar home button towards the bottom — a button we should note feels much clickier than on our 3GS. On the left side of the phone you’ve got the new volume buttons, a redesigned mute switch, and a small notch towards the base of the unit. On the right side is the Micro SIM slot and another notch in the band at the bottom, and up top there’s the power / sleep button, headphone jack, another notch, and new noise-canceling microphone. Along the bottom is a speaker, microphone, and the 30-pin dock connector port. The backside of the phone is made from the same kind of ultra-strong glass as the front, interrupted only by the new five megapixel camera, its LED flash companion and, of course, the Apple logo.

Overall, the iPhone 4 outclasses pretty much every smartphone on the market in terms of industrial design. It just comes off like a far more expensive device, like a Mobiado or Vertu — but better designed. And it’s not just the way the phone looks; the materials feel good — premium — in your hands. The first few days we had our test unit, we were definitely freaked out about dropping or losing the phone, and some of that had to do with the fact that it’s just a really beautiful device to use and hold.

Internals

It’s not just the face of the phone that’s undergone a transformation — the iPhone 4 is all new inside as well. For starters, Apple has moved on from the Samsung-built ARM Cortex-A8-based CPU used in the 3GS to its custom A4 chip used in the iPad, which funnily enough… is an ARM Cortex-A8-based CPU. While the company hasn’t yet said what the clock speed of the processor is, we’re guessing it’s something below the 1GHz touted for its tablet cousin. The phone is definitely snappier than the 3GS, so we’re not about to volley complaints just yet — in particular, graphics seemed to render faster, and overall responsiveness was slightly higher, though admittedly, it wasn’t blowing the doors off the joint. It’s certainly faster, but the 3GS wasn’t hurting on speed to our eyes, so it’s not as wildly noticeable a leap as the 3G to the 3GS.

As usual, Apple isn’t fessing up about the RAM situation, though we have on very good authority that the iPhone 4 has 512MB onboard, a big step up from the 256MB in the previous model and the iPad. We would have liked to see it futureproofed with something like 1GB, but then again, Apple’s got to sell a new phone in a year. As far as internal storage goes, you can buy the new iPhone in either 16GB ($199 on contract) or 32GB ($299 on contract) capacity — fine for now, but since the company has just introduced 30FPS 720p video recording, you could find yourself outgrowing that number pretty quickly. It’s a little odd, in fact, that the company didn’t double down here and bump the capacity to 64GB, as it’s recently done with the iPod touch. In terms of wireless, the iPhone 4 is packed with an 802.11n WiFi radio, as well as a quad-band HSUPA chip and Bluetooth 2.1.

The redesigned housing allows for a much larger lithium-ion battery on the inside, providing improved numbers for Apple’s life ratings (more on that in a moment), though it’s still not easily replaceable. Additionally, the new phone has those two new cameras (VGA up front, five megapixels with LED flash around back), a new second microphone used to combat background noise while on calls (similar to the Nexus One), a gyroscope in addition to the standard accelerometer, a light sensor, and a proximity sensor. As with the 3GS, an AGPS chip and compass are bundled somewhere in that tiny frame as well.

Of course, the big internal story is what has become external: namely, the UMTS, GPS, WiFi, and Bluetooth antennas. Apple has made the stainless band around the phone essentially a couple of big antennae, and they seem to be doing a pretty good job at hanging onto radio signals. The big question is obviously whether or not this fixes or helps with the constant dropped calls iPhone users on AT&T’s network have gotten used to. Well in our testing, we had far, far fewer dropped calls than we experienced on our 3GS. Let’s just say that again: yes, the iPhone 4 does seem to alleviate the dropped call issue. It wasn’t perfect, and we had some connection issues in downtown New York City in particular, though it’s tough to say if it was the fault of our phone, the cluster of buildings we were near, or the person we were speaking to, who was on a 3GS in the same location.

Display

By now you should know that iPhone 4 has an all-new display, as well. Apple is calling the LED backlit, 960 x 640 IPS screen the “Retina Display” due to its high resolution and pixel density. At the same 3.5-inches as the older screens, the new display manages an insane 326ppi pixel density along with an 800:1 contrast ratio. Steve made a huge point about the science behind this technology during his keynote, claiming that the resolution of the screen essentially tops what is perceivable by the human eye. There have been some debates as to whether or not this argument holds water, but we can tell you this: to our eyes, there has never been a more detailed, clear, or viewable screen on any mobile device.

iPhone 3GS on the left, iPhone 4 on the right

Not only are the colors and blacks deep and rich, but you simply cannot see pixels on the screen. Okay, if you take some macro camera shots or get right up in there you can make them out, but in general use, the screen is free of jaggies of any type, unless you’re looking at a last-gen app that hasn’t had its artwork updated. Text rendering is incredibly clear and clean — webpages that would be line after line of pixelated content when zoomed out on a 3GS (say, Engadget or the New York Times) are completely readable on the iPhone 4, though the text is beyond microscopic. It’s impressive, and doubly impressive when you look at higher-res graphics or watch 720p video on the phone — the detail in moving images is particularly striking. What’s nice is that most apps with text in them will benefit from this tech whether or not they’ve been updated, as long as they’re using Apple’s font rendering. Text in the Engadget app, for instance, looks cleaner, clearer, and much easier to read on the new iPhone.

Nexus One up top, iPhone 4 below

Because Apple is using IPS and LED technology for its screen, the iPhone 4 is mercifully visible in full sunlight, and performance in low light and at extreme viewing angles are favorable. Overall, you simply won’t find a better display on a phone, and that’s not just lip service.

Cameras

The cameras on the new iPhone are going to be a topic of much debate, since this has been an area where Apple has been slow to innovate. The 3GS sported a measly three megapixel shooter with few bells and whistles (and no flash), and while it was fine for quick snaps, it wasn’t an artist’s tool by any means. The company finally seems to be listening to a public that’s interested in leaving the point-and-shoot at home in favor of a phone with a capable camera, by adding a five megapixel shooter to the backside of the iPhone 4 and a VGA camera up front.

Let’s first take a look at the higher-res main camera. At his WWDC keynote, Jobs said that getting great looking images wasn’t just about upping the camera’s megapixels, but had more to do with grabbing more photons. Increase the photon count, let more light in, and your images will look better, the thought goes. So Apple’s using a newer backside-illuminated sensor that’s more sensitive to light in addition to upping those megapixels — and we must say, pictures on the iPhone 4 look stunning. Our shots looked good right out of the gate, with few problems when it came to focusing or low light. With the flash on, we managed decent if somewhat blown out results (fairly common with smaller LED flashes) though impressively, the iPhone 4 was usually able to take completely useable and even handsome photos in fairly low light without the flash. It seems like that photon situation is definitely in play, because even shots taken in fairly dark lighting came out looking good. Autofocus worked well in most situations, and we were actually able to get some impressive looking macro shots (see the flowers and Penny below). In general, we’d have no trouble using the iPhone 4′s camera as a stand-in for a dedicated camera. Not only did it take beautiful shots, but the A4 and iOS 4 combo have considerably sped up the time it takes to snap pictures — it’s now almost instantaneous. Otherwise, you have options for a 5x digital zoom (which produces results that look like a digital zoom) and basic on / off / auto settings for the flash. It’s pretty bare bones, and we wouldn’t have minded a few basic options like white balance settings — but c’mon, this is Apple we’re talking about. Luckily, the App Store is chock full of applications that improve upon the stock camera app — we expect to see a handful of new ones that take advantage of the new sensor soon.

As far as video goes, we were definitely impressed by the 720p capture, though there are stability issues with the lens and the all-too-familiar “jellyvision” CMOS issues that tend to rear their head if you’re not holding the phone very steady. Still, we can’t see carrying around a Flip HD instead of just keeping this in our pocket (though as we said, we’d like to see a higher storage capacity). Everything we shot looked crisp and mostly artifact-free, and we didn’t see any hiccups in the 30 FPS rate Apple claims, even in lower light. Adding iMovie to the mix for on-the-fly editing is a nice touch too (more on that in the software section). The video below was shot and edited completely in-phone, so enjoy — and here’s the raw output to download.

Around front, the VGA camera is… well, a VGA camera. It actually does a fine job of capturing your face during video calls, and worked surprisingly well in low light, but it’s not going to win any prizes for being the most advanced shooter on a handset. It does provide for some interesting angle options when it comes to video shooting, and we expect a lot of people will be taking advantage of the weirdly video game-like perspective. All in all, it looks good, but it’s pretty utilitarian.

Speaker / earpiece

We’ve never had a particular problem with the speaker or earpiece on previous iPhones (well, the speakerphone has never been loud enough for our taste), but it’s obvious that Apple has done some work on getting both call quality and speakerphone quality up. Beyond making the phone considerably and consistently louder in both places, the clarity of the iPhone 4 is noticeably improved from the previous generation. If you read our review, then you know that we thought Motorola’s original Droid had some of the best sounding components we’ve heard on a phone, and the new iPhone definitely gives them a run for the money. The first time we took a call on the device we were walking down New York’s extremely noisy Fifth Avenue, and right away it was obvious that the secondary, noise-canceling mic was doing some heavy lifting, at least on the other end of the line. Even though sirens were wailing behind us and we were surrounded by chatty shoppers, it was easy to hear our party on the other end, and they could hear us perfectly (unless we were lied to). There’s clearly a difference between the sound in the earpiece on the new phone versus the 3GS, and it ranks highly against newer competition like the EVO. As far as the speakerphone goes, it gets loud without distorting or producing cutting midrange, a problem we’ve noticed on quite a few recent phones. We’d liken the iPhone 4 in quality to something along the lines of the BlackBerry Bold — a bearable tone even when it gets hot.

Software

As with the other revisions to Apple’s phone line, the hardware is only half of the story. Along with the iPhone 4 comes iOS 4, the re-branded iPhone OS which boasts loads of new features, most notably a very Apple-ized version of smartphone multitasking, a video calling feature dubbed FaceTime, folders so you can organize your apps, enhanced Mail, and lots of other nips and tucks — both big and small — that refine the company’s growing operating system. Additionally, Apple has ported the iPad’s iBooks to the smaller screen, and has created a new version of its popular iMovie just for the iPhone 4. Overall, the OS is still very much the same as it’s always been, but there are some big changes here that bear investigation.

Multitasking

This is a big one, and more than just a little controversial. Since the dawn of apps for the iPhone (remember, way back in 2008?), people have been up in arms about the lack of third-party backgrounding for applications. Sure, you could keep Mail, Safari, iPod, and a few other Apple programs cranking while you used your phone, but those privileges were strictly off limits for third-party devs working on the device. It’s arguable that one of the driving forces behind the jailbreaking movement was a desire for this feature — something a phone as powerful as the iPhone was clearly capable of. Apple’s argument has always been that multitasking causes an undue amount of battery drain from phones, and had to be approached with caution, lest we all end up with juiceless phones at high noon. Recently, however, that tune has changed. Apple has — in true Apple fashion — “figured out” how to “do multitasking right” — namely, the company isn’t allowing full backgrounding as much as it’s allowing a handful of APIs that mimic backgrounding. Things like holding onto a GPS signal, letting music play in the background, staying connected to VoIP calls (or receiving them), and fast switching (basically a way for you to return quickly to exactly where you left off in an app).

So, does Apple pull it off? Can this scarce handful of APIs makeup for true backgrounding? In a word: yep.

Here’s the thing — this may not be “true” multitasking for a lot of us, but it amounts to multitasking for most of us. That is, it looks, feels, and acts like multitasking, so it’s pretty tough to complain about it. In fact: we’re not going to complain about it, especially given the fact that some of our favorite apps — the IRC client Colloquy being one of them — do just about exactly what we need them to do, all according to Apple’s rules and regulations. Previous to the new OS, we’d been jailbreaking our phone just to keep an IRC session running in the background. Now, utilizing some of those new APIs, the Colloquy developers have created an elegant and useful solution that pleases both users and the Cupertino Cops. The point is: it works, it does so bug free, and without a major drain on battery life (quite the contrary… more on that in a moment). We’re not saying we liked waiting for this kind of thing to come around, and yes, we’d prefer something more open and flexible — but this works, and works well.

So how is Apple making this magic happen? Here’s a breakdown of just exactly what multitasking really means (and feels like) on the new iPhone (and the 3GS):

• Fast app switching: You know how you can leave off in Mail halfway through writing a response and go back to exactly where you were? Well that happens everywhere now. When you leave the app, you go back in exactly the same place. And it happens quickly. Fast app switching is essentially like toggling between “paused” applications. This combined with Apple’s new app switcher (double tap the home button to bring up your most recently used apps) destroys that annoying iPhone feeling of going in and out and in and out. It just doesn’t exist anymore, provided all your apps are up to date, which is going to take some time. It’s amazing how much this single feature counts — it’s definitely one of the prime movers here, and it’s so simple it’s stupid. We would have liked to see options for “favorite” apps or some way to prioritize what you’re switching to, but once you get used to this system — which just puts whatever you’ve used most recently to the far left — it makes some sense.
• Task completion: Basically, task completion lets an app do its thing even if you leave it. So if you’re uploading or downloading a picture in Evernote or Dropbox, or saving an article in the New York Times app, even if you navigate away, the job is done when you get back to the app. This accounts for a lot of what we think of as multitasking. Most of your apps are just idling — it’s only when you interact with them that it counts. We don’t know the boundaries for this API, though it seems to leave a lot of room for creative use. We know it’s not just big jobs, it’s little ones too — Colloquy uses this feature to keep you connected to your IRC host. To be honest, that kind of behavior is one thing we thought we wouldn’t see in iOS 4, and here it is. Hopefully Twitter app devs and other instant messaging clients will utilize the API in a similar manner.
• Background audio and VoIP: These two are straightforward. The first allows for music playing apps to keep their stream running in the background (and even gives them little widget controls in the app switcher), and the second allows VoIP connections to stay active. That means you can stay on a Skype call and go check your mail, but it also means that the VoIP connection will be aware of incoming calls when you’re not actively using an app. Additionally, this API can be used to allow for recording even if you exit an app, as demonstrated effectively in the new version of Evernote.
• Background GPS: Basically, GPS apps can keep running in the background… for obvious reasons. This one will drain your battery if you’re not docked — but who’s using a GPS app and not plugging that thing in? Okay, we might be a little guilty of that. Regardless, this will keep your navigation software afloat if you have to take a call, and apparently will let GPS-centric apps like FourSquare check in even if you’re not running it in the foreground.

Apple combines these heavy hitters with more familiar tricks, like push notifications, to excellent effect. We know that the hardcore users will cry foul because a lot of this doesn’t amount to “true” multitasking, but we also know that often solutions to problems come in different colors. Apple found a way in iOS 4 to solve a pretty good amount of its major problems in this department, and so far what we’ve seen is very promising. If it’s only going to get better from here, we don’t mind coming along for the ride. But it better only get better, Apple.

FaceTime

If you didn’t know anything about video calling, Apple would definitely have you convinced that they just up and invented the concept based on never-aired Jetsons footage judged too futuristic for TV. Of course, the truth is that in lots of other places (and even in the US to an extent), smartphone video calling isn’t exactly a new thing. In fact, in much of Europe and Asia, this technology is old hat. But Apple isn’t going to let a little thing like facts get in the way of a good marketing play, and in their (slight) defense, no one’s effectively brought video calling to the masses just yet. (One of our European editors says that he’s gone ten years without seeing anyone make a video call in his neck of the woods.) While this may be an unscientific perspective, it suggests that it’s not enough to just have the tech — the feature needs to be sold to people.

So has Apple done it? Maybe, and maybe not. We’re certainly impressed by the concept and Apple’s willingness to open up their “FaceTime standard” to anyone who wants to get in on the party. That means that developers on any platform — provided they can meet all the necessary requirements — can create applications that talk via the protocol (or set of protocols, really). We’re also impressed with the tech itself, which feels polished and slick out of the gate. But right now, there’s only one way to do FaceTime calls, and that’s via the iPhone 4… and only over WiFi, which means that the opportunity to make these calls is pretty limited for now. Additionally, in our testing, we found that you really need to have a good, strong, nearby WiFi signal to hang onto a connection. More than once we had video freeze on us, and we had one fully dropped call because someone went out of the WiFi range, but hey… you need to be in range for even the most basic tasks, so we can’t fault Apple too much for that. It does seem clear that the iPhone video chats are moving quite a few bits around, however. What’s nice about FaceTime is that unlike Qik or other third-party options for something like the EVO, there’s no setup here and it’s completely integrated into the dialer of the phone — meaning the only hangup is whether or not you have decent WiFi.

But what is it like? Well in truth, it’s actually a teensy bit amazing. Yes, we’re a little numb to the PR speak about how game changing it is, but there’s still something deeply sci-fi about dialing up a friend and being able to hold this thing in your hand and have a video chat. We did a call with Apple’s Greg Joswiak while he was in Paris (see the image above), and when he walked outside and flipped the camera to show us the Eiffel Tower, it was a legitimately weird experience — a “you are there” moment. As you can see in the call below with USA Today‘s Ed Baig (his take on the iPhone 4 is right here), it’s a pretty new way to talk to someone, at least for us. Having a random face-to-face conversation with a kid about what he’s having for lunch is just the tip of the iceberg — we can definitely see this feature coming into play in all sorts of ways in our lives.

Technically speaking, actually making calls is straightforward; you can switch to a FaceTime chat while you’re already connected, or you’re given to option to launch right into a FaceTime connection. We were a little surprised by the fact that you can only mute the audio on your calls; if you want the video off, you need to cover the lens in the old fashioned way — with your hands.

All said, it’s a fascinating inclusion, and we’ve got a sneaking suspicion that Apple intends to do more than just basic calls with this. Obviously the addition of conference FaceTime sessions would be huge, and we’re also looking forward to using the function on a 3G network — it’s nice to have a chat from your house, but what would really be great is taking these kinds of conversations out into the wide world. We think that coupled with active development for clients on lots of platforms (not just the iPhone) will make FaceTime much more interesting — it’s a curiosity right now, but it could be something else entirely with a little time and elbow grease.

Folders

What can you really say about folders? Basically: it’s about time. We’re happy that Apple has seen the light and included something like this in iOS 4, and the implementation is elegant enough, but it would have been nice to store more than 12 items at a time. As it stands, if you have a lot of one kind of app, you’re going to end up with a group of folders in the same category. We have a second “Games” folder, but some of you out there will have more like six or seven of those. That helps the problem, but doesn’t solve it completely. We get why Apple made this decision — likely a desire to keep it simple — but it would be nice to be able to make the room if you wanted it.

Mail improvements

For a lot of us, the new tweaks to the iPhone’s Mail app have seriously been a long time coming. Among the major improvements in iOS 4 are a unified inbox and threaded messaging (finally!) — both of which have made dealing with email on the iPhone a considerably more enjoyable experience. We still think that the mail client is lacking in comparison to Gmail, but that has more to do with our addiction to Gmail than anything else, we suspect. Overall, Mail feels much more complete now, and Apple has solved the same problem in Mail that it had with app switching — that feeling of constantly jumping into and out of your inboxes.

iBooks / iMovie

This isn’t a barnstormer, but it’s a nice inclusion. If you’ve used iBooks for the iPad, the experience is about the same… just smaller. There’s not a ton to say about it, except that in addition to lots of other great book apps on the iPhone, Apple has now given you its own. We still don’t think it stacks up to Amazon or Barnes & Noble in terms of selection, though the presentation is better in many ways, and it will sync your notes and bookmarks across platforms.

iMovie, on the other hand, is something new entirely. We can’t say we didn’t see this one coming since Apple just added video recording and editing to its arsenal with the introduction of iPhone OS 3 and the 3GS — but this takes things one step further. The $4.99 app gives you access to more advanced features, like a (very) limited selection of transitions between clips, the option to add audio to your videos, plus a handful of themes and titling effects. We found it to be extremely capable for fast edits, though everything is pretty sandboxed here, so while you do have the most basic editing tools, things like splitting a clip can be a little bit of a hassle. Since you can only edit the beginning and end of a snippet, if you want to split something into multiple parts you have to drag the clip into your edit repeatedly and then scale the start and finish points for each one. It can be a pain if you’re doing lots of jump cuts — though we don’t expect everyone to be making the next Casino on this thing… though, someone probably will, right? For a few bucks, it’s definitely worth having, and we expect that after a few people start using the thing, Apple might be prompted to add a few more options.

What’s not in the new OS

It’s not all wine and roses as far as we’re concerned. While Apple has made huge strides in many areas here, this wouldn’t be an Engadget review if we didn’t have our nitpicks. In particular, we still cannot understand or accept the company’s approach to notifications. We’re at version 4 of this OS, and we’re still plagued by these intrusive, productivity-freezing alerts. If you’re as busy as we are, then you know what it’s like to get invite after invite for your calendar, text messages, and push notifications that just stall the phone out. While every other modern OS-maker has figured out an elegant way to deal with notifications (including the forthcoming Windows Phone 7), Apple clings to this broken system. Why? We can’t really say. We find it hard to believe that there aren’t folks in Cupertino who feel the way we do — in fact, we’re sure of it. Maybe that explains the hiring of Palm’s “notification guru” Rich Dellinger. We sure hope!

The other thing that’s driving us crazy is the lack of widgets. Apple almost gets there with its new extensible music player controls, but there are still no good solutions for glanceable information on the iPhone. We’ll admit that it’s better now that fast app switching is in play, but we’d still like that weather icon to actually show us the temperature where we live. Is that too much to ask? The competition seems to have this one licked — we’d really like to see Apple take a stab at it.

Accessories

It wouldn’t be a new iPhone without some accessories, but Apple has kept it tidy. The company is offering a new dock, of course, for twenty-nine of your US dollars (that’s $29), and a selection of colorful “bumpers” that protect the phone for the same price. We’ve got a few bumpers in-house, and while we’re not really big fans of the way they look or feel, they do seem to protect the phone pretty well. On that note, we’ve actually seen the iPhone 4 tossed with and without a bumper across a room (one hit a wall) with no issue, and we dropped ours pretty hard from about two feet up onto tile with nary a scratch.

Battery life

This is a big one for many people, and we have some fairly surprising news to report. The battery life on the iPhone 4 has been outstanding thus far, exceeding our expectations for longevity during testing. We’ve only had a short time to use the phone, but in the week or so we’ve been carrying the device as our main phone, we’ve had pretty amazing results under normal to heavy use. In fact, we managed to squeeze more than 38 hours — yes, 38 hours — of life out of a single charge using the phone as we normally would. We’re talking calls, some gaming, lots of push email and calendar invites, playing music over Bluetooth in the car, and just general testing (like downloading new apps, rearranging icons, tweaking settings). We went from 10:30AM on a Saturday morning till 1:00AM on Monday without needing to charge the phone. Of course, it switched itself off just after the clock struck 1, but it was thrilling — like that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer and the car salesman see how far they can get in a car with the tank on E. Sitcom references aside, the battery life seems markedly improved in the iPhone 4, and why not? It’s got a much larger battery coupled with that iPad-powering A4, which has already shown that it can sip rather than gulp power.

Once the rest of the team has their iPhones in hand, we’ll do some hardcore battery life testing and see what we come up with, but we think under pretty active use, the iPhone 4 blows Apple’s previous generation phone out of the water, and makes a lot of the competition look downright needy.

Wrap-up

We’re not going to beat around the bush — in our approximation, the iPhone 4 is the best smartphone on the market right now. The combination of gorgeous new hardware, that amazing display, upgraded cameras, and major improvements to the operating system make this an extremely formidable package. Yes, there are still pain points that we want to see Apple fix, and yes, there are some amazing alternatives to the iPhone 4 out there. But when it comes to the total package — fit and finish in both software and hardware, performance, app selection, and all of the little details that make a device like this what it is — we think it’s the cream of the current crop. We won’t argue that a lot of this is a matter of taste — some people will just prefer the way Android or Symbian works to the iPhone, and others will be on the lookout for a hardware keyboard or a particular asset that the iPhone 4 lacks — but in terms of the total picture, it’s tough to deny that Apple has moved one step past the competition with this phone. Of course, in the hyper-accelerated smartphone market where the Next Big Thing seems to always be just around the corner, it’s anyone’s guess how long they keep that edge.

Source

Engadget