Last week, I began a little experiment to test out the veracity of Apple’s claims about one of the new iPhone 4’s most touted features: the Retina display.  In particular, the claim is: “the Retina display’s pixel density is so high, your eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels.”

Well, after subjecting the previous iPhone model, the 3GS, to a little bit of optical testing, we here at the lab have managed to gain access to one of the new specimens and have repeated our tests.  And as promised, here are the results.

First, a general overview of the iPhone 4 screen:

Obviously the above image is a greatly scaled-down view.  To see the whole thing, you’ll want to click here (sorry, slow-internet users).  Right off the bat, you hold this phone in your hand and you see a HUGE improvement over the previous display.  For the most part, the 3GS screen isn’t that bad when you look at it alone.  It does a pretty good job of doing what it has to do to deliver a decent image.  But the iPhone 4… wow.  Just… wow.  It’s incredibly crisp, and puts the previous generation screens to total shame.

Is it like holding a sheet of paper in your hand, like Apple claims?  No, not exactly.  Paper still has a better crispness to it.  But, this screen is still pretty damned clear.  And at least to my eyesight, Apple is right: I couldn’t make out individual pixels.

But, what about our little friend, with the much bigger eye and the much better eyesight?

Well, he’s been waiting for this moment.

The lab was set up as before: the camera fitted with a 60mm macro lens, and mounted at the closest distance it would focus (0.2m).  And here’s what it saw:

Again, this is reduced.  Here’s the full size version.

Long story short: yes, the Canon with the nice macro lens can still see the pixels on the new display.  But, that doesn’t really tell us much.  How does the new display stack up to the old one?

Let’s compare.  Here’s a reduced-size, side-by-side image of the Calculator app icon on the 3GS (left), and the iPhone 4 retina display (right):

And here of course, is the full-size image.  But even from the reduced image, it’s blatantly evident: there’s a BIG improvement between the old display and the new.

To drive the point home, here’s a pixel-for-pixel closeup:

Apple’s hard technical figures are spot-on: there’s effectively a 4:1 pixel increase in the new display over the old one, and the resulting improvement is significant.  In fact, it’s actually pretty hard to go back to using the previous-gen display after playing with the new one for a while.

Realistically and objectively though, is this alone worth the upgrade?  For some people, I would argue yes, particualrly if you use your iPhone a lot.  The new display is easier on the eyes, and has a nice vibrance to it.

On the other hand, a casual user might get the same wow-factor from looking at the new screen but wouldn’t quite benefit that much.  At the very least, there aren’t any iPhone apps as of this writing that absolutely require the better screen.  Though, that may change in time.

I certainly would wait until after the current waiting-line hysteria has died down.  It should be clear to any reasonable that until the lines start to dwindle as the early adopters finally get their gadgets, the chances of getting one in the immediate future if you haven’t already are slim.

As with the previous screen test, a gallery of test pics can be viewed after the cut:

If you’re out there standing in line for an iPhone, or freaking out over alleged iPhone 4 defects, I have a few things to say.

Don’t panic.

This is the fourth time this cyclical hysteria has happened. It never fails. In the end, the blog posts about it die off, the bloggers and “analysts” get bored and find some other shiny thing to speculate about whether x chip was manufactured incorrectly or not or whether x company did their launch right, no massive recall of “defective” iPhones ever occurs, and yet somehow the vast majority continue to use their iPhones just fine.  Life goes on.

Soon, there will be tales  of people who’ve exchanged their iPhone 4s a half-dozen times or more after finding some teensy quirk that drives them OCD-crazy, and don’t get the hint after the 9001st exchange that their expectations on hyper-perfection will simply not be realized. I guarantee it: this happens every time and ends up amounting to nothing. Though, it might take a bit longer this time around for exchange unit inventory to populate the stores.

I think the best advice anyone can give people who are waiting in line, obsessing over defects, or doing any of the other classic iPhone-launch-OCD behaviors, is to just relax, and chill a bit. All these lines that have formed, and most the complaints about network performance tend to ultimately rest on the fact that so many people are obsessing about this particular piece of expensive metal and glass. At the end of the day, it’s just not that important.

And if you’re one of those people who are about to fire back with “WELL FOR A $599 DEVICE IT BETTER BE PERFECT!!” – then you’re exactly the demographic I’m talking to. You’re parting with hundreds of dollars and you’re incredibly stressed over it. Is itworth $599 and all this hassle to not be happy?

It took me being separated from my iPhone – and having no mobile device to speak of – for a week and half to come to that realization. It’s amazing how being unplugged for a while resets your mindset, and helps you be way less stressed over things. The iPhone is an amazing tool and I still wouldn’t prefer to leave it behind, but I’m not not going to let it rule my life, nor will I deprive myself of sleep to stand in an outrageously long line and probably (not) get one.

Relax.  You’ll get your iPhone in good time.  There are more important things in life.

Ironically, a mere two hours before the great iPhone theft debacle that occurred earlier this week, I was busy photographing my beloved (and now lost) cell phone for a little project I wanted to work on.

In particular, I wanted to see just what kind of a difference there is between the previous model’s screen, and that of the new iPhone 4.  One of the new model’s oft-touted features is the retina display, which is purported to offer a resolution so high that the human eye can’t make out individual pixels.

Whether this is true or not is subject to heated debate in the blog and pundit arena. But I’m willing to bet that although my own naked eyes might not be able to make out individual pixels on the new iPhone, I think I know an eye that can.

With the right optics and magnification, my current 18 Megapixel digital camera should be able to give me what I’m looking for: the ability to really compare, pixel-for-pixel, between the existing iPhone 3GS display and the new iPhone 4.  While I still don’t have an iPhone 4 to test with, I figured I might as well get the first subject – the previous model – ready for its closeup, and then compare when I ultimately could get my hands on the new one.

And so, I got to work setting up the lab…

My Canon EOS T2i was fitted with an EF-S 60mm macro lens, and mounted directly above a comfortably-resting iPhone 3GS at the closest distance this lens will focus: 0.2 meters.  Simple enough, and pretty straightforward as seen from the image above.  Though I think the title shot, taken with lights-out over 25 seconds, with only the camera’s red-eye light and the iPhone display providing the lighting, makes it much more dramatic looking.

The actual shots themselves were taken in complete darkness (aside from the display of course) and the camera set to 100 ISO.  And the phone’s display brightness was set to full.

So how did it look?  See for yourself…

Hmm, that does seem pretty grainy, doesn’t it?  Well, We haven’t even scratched the surface.  This is a hugely-downsampled version of the original image, which you can download here.  But, in case you have a slow internet connection, here’s an enlargement of a small section of the image:

There are more images after the cut, showing additional examples of the screen at close range and at angles.  With any luck, I’ll be able to repeat this experiment with a brand new iPhone, and see what kind of difference a retina display can make.

For the past 10 hours or so, I’ve been staring almost non stop at the above graphic.  Like countless millions of other apple geeks hoping to be among the first to own an iPhone 4, I’ve been furiously shaking my fist at this spinning graphic as AT&T’s servers crash, taking Apple’s online ordering system down with it.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t initially planning on being one of the crazies who wants the latest and greatest first.  I was perfectly happy to stick with my trusty iPhone 3GS for a little while.  That is, until I did something stupid and lost it last night, only for someone else to find it and take it home with them.

Yes, I lost my phone, and then someone stole it.  I know this for a fact.  You know how I know?  Because MobileMe has this neat feature that lets you track the location of your iPhone via GPS.  Indeed, it first showed me that my iPhone was exactly where I thought I had left it.  Then, as I sped to that location at 80MPH, I arrived only to find that it was now pinging at some dude’s house.  That is, before he completely wiped the iPhone and probably jailbroke and unlocked the poor thing.

By the way: in case you’re wondering, the police are useless. They will not, under any circumstances, go after anyone or even knock on the door where your missing property is located, even if you present them with a perfectly accurate GPS map of where that property is telling you it’s located.  All they will do is offer to file a missing property (not stolen, missing) property report, which you can either wipe your ass with, or perhaps wad up into a ball and throw at the window of the confirmed thief’s house, thus maybe startling them a little.

Of course, if I worked for Apple, I’m sure things would have been different, right?

Last night’s harrowing experience only compounds my anger and frustration with AT&T today.  Not being able to purchase a new iPhone is one thing.  But I can’t do anything with my account.  I can’t activate a new SIM to put in a dumb phone, and thus have some modicum of phone service while I wait out the mob. Nor can I suspend my service.  Right now, I can’t even log into my AT&T account to see if the thief has been calling Zimbabwe, downloading porn, or perhaps texting sweet nothings to my girlfriend without my knowledge.

This folks, is what AT&T exclusivity will get you.

I have to say, I have been a staunch defender of AT&T up to now.  The complaints and anti-AT&T negativity have been constant, though I have firmly believed that slow data issues and capcity problem would be evident on any US carrier Apple had chosen to carry the iphone.

But today’s situation is so bad that even non-iPhone customers are having to suffer, all because AT&T didn’t have sound planning and server capacity in place, or even the ability to segment some of it so that while rabid Apple fanboys were masturbating to iPhone photos, the rest of us could do things like, oh, staunch the possibility of account fraud and identity theft.

So yes, today is as good an example as any that product exclusivity is a bad thing, and competition is good.  And Verizon really, really needs to get the iPhone soon, so that at the very least, days like this are less likely to happen again.

UPDATE: In case anyone cares, after three more hours of constant retrying, I was finally able to place an order. So I’ll only go a week and a half without a mobile device. Tech withdrawal, here we come!

Just a couple days ago, in a very mind-numbing work meeting about technology and vendors and storage platforms and On-Demand Cloud Computing, I happened to gaze into my smartphone and let my mind wander as I tend to do, many times a during such meetings. Only this time, I made a very emotional, very bittersweet discovery: that I was officially living in and being a part of “The Future^TM” and, sadly, the mentor who opened my eyes, taught, cajoled, whipped me into shape and ultimately brought me here, was not around to watch it unfold.

That mentor was my second grade teacher. To protect the innocent, we’ll call her Mrs. H.

For better or for worse, Mrs. H is pretty much the person responsible for exposing me to the world of computers. Now, at the risk of dating myself, let me explain: we didn’t have nearly-ubiquitous computing back then, where people could totally the surf the web and Tweet and facebook on their touch screen smartphones, constantly connected, any time of the day or night. Hell, we didn’t even even have touch screens back then, or even a web to speak of for there to even exist a Twitter or Facebook. Not only were smartphones nonexistent, but cell phones themselves were exceedingly rare, and totally unavailable in the town I lived in at the time. Not only were color graphics on your computer a luxury, but just having a computer was a huge deal.

No, back then, a teacher still showed us abstract concepts on a blackboard, using chalk. Students turned in assignments written on paper, using Number 2 Pencils.

It was an age when the Macintosh was in existence, but way beyond the financial capacity of anyone but businesses and the very wealthy. Even so, my elementary school was fortunate. Although computers in classrooms were very cutting edge and experimental, and computing budgets in schools simply didn’t exist at the time, they managed to pool together enough cash and purchase what we knew as “The Apple:” a single Apple IIe, bolted onto an A/V cart, and wheeled around the school, shared among dozens of classrooms and hundreds of students from kindergarten through 5th grade.

And in this environment thrived Mrs. H.

Mrs. H was an awesome teacher. She had been in the classroom teaching second grade little snots like me for at least 25 years. In many respects she was a stereotypical schoolmarm, complete with glasses that had a little string around them so she could hang them around around her neck when they weren’t being worn, and never lose track of them. Most of the time she was the nicest, sweetest teacher of the whole school. But if you goofed off, horseplayed, ran with scissors, gossiped or didn’t do your work, she could instantly turn into the strictest, sternest, meanest disciplinarian in the whole district, and she would set you straight.

I, of course, was a complete goofass, as I’ve always been in life. And so I was often the subject of her sternest glares through those bifocals, and the sharpest renditions of her ubiquitous, this-means-business phrase: “YOU’D BETTER STRAIGHTEN UP, YOUNG MAN!”

For Mrs. H, I would always straighten up in the end. But not so much because of her spine chilling reprimands, as because she was the school’s Official Keeper Of The Apple. Despite fitting the schoolmarm stereotype, she was the most “with it” in terms of technology in the whole school. She knew the most about it, taught the most with it, and consequently, ended up logging the most reserved hours with The Apple in our school. And only the students in her class who behaved and did their work would get to use it. Although I had never touched one before entering her class, I was enamored with that computer the first time I saw it, and Mrs. H knew it. And so it became her most effective bargaining chip in taming the most stubborn goofass of second grade.

And so, in her class, I learned like I had never learned before. I eagerly did my work as quickly and thoroughly as I could just to get some “computer time.” As boring as it sounds now, BASIC programming, even on a green monochrome screen and the most rudimentary of audio was pretty damned fun in second grade, when school was the only time you could get exposed to anything related to a computer. Mrs. H recognized that, for all my goofassery, I would probably grow up to be one of those guys that does Important Computer Machine Work.

“You’re going to be an important part of The Future,” she once told me. And she made my dad realize it as well.

Sadly, my graduating into 3rd grade meant by default, I would be getting a new teacher who could not even approach the technological awesomeness of Mrs. H, and this meant way, way less “computer time.” Fortunately, my dad intervened and struck a deal with Mrs. H to provide me with “advanced” computer lessons after school. My mentoring continued for another year.

She and I ended up spending an awful lot of time together, and I learned more from her than any other teacher in elementary school. In a way, she almost became more like a grandmother or great aunt to me, and she probably spent more time tutoring me than she did any other kid in that school. So, I imagine it must’ve been hard for her to sponsor me – without me really knowing at the time – for one of those “gifted kids” programs, where myself and a bunch of other brainy kids would be bussed to some farther away “advanced” elementary school. At this school, more money was spent and the ratio of computers to kids was 1 to 5 instead of 1 to 500. I continued to learn more and get more constant exposure to technology, but it wasn’t quite the same… because it wasn’t with Mrs. H.

My dad realized this, and struck one final deal with her: that summer, he would pay Mrs. H to tutor me once more. This time, it was at her house: a virtual computing paradise, with computers in practically every room. Once again, I thrived. Even though I was totally turning into a geek before I even reached middle school, it was the best summer I had ever spent.

Unfortunately, times ultimately got tough, and due to some unfortunate events money was starting to get tight for my family around this time. My dad, knowing he couldn’t pay Mrs. H for computer lessons forever and understandably feeling awkward about her teaching me for free, saved up some cash and gave me The Best Birthday Gift Ever: a computer desk he made himself, and the first computer I could call my own. Anything similar to Mrs. H’s Technology Paradise was way out of his monetary reach, but he managed to buy me something just as awesome, if incompatible: the low-priced but advanced and then-ubiquitous Commodore 64. I hadn’t even hit puberty yet, but here I was, the only person on my block with a computer in his own bedroom. I was so engrossed in using it, programming on it and playing games with it, that I almost didn’t notice that my visits to Mrs. H’s house rapidly declined in frequency, and ultimately ended forever.

The end of the 80s not only signified my last sessions with Mrs H, but ultimately heralded the long-overdue end of the 6502 processor’s dominance in the computer market. The Apple IIs and Commodore 64s of the day rapidly became obsolete, and technology’s breakneck run to new advances, faster processors, and better computers pushed me along for the ride. I was in high school by the time this thing called The Internet started making itself known to the public. And in college, it became My Life, well before it turned into MySpace for everyone else. I rarely consciously thought of Mrs. H, but she was in the back of mind, somewhere. Any time I slacked off and realized that my slackage was doing me in, a subconscious schoolmarm rebuke and through-the-bifocals stare would snap me back into reality. And every time I did something positive on the web, I sometimes liked to think my mentor would see it and it would make her proud.

Today, thanks in no small part to Mrs. H, I am indeed one of those guys that does Important Computer Machine Work. The technological decisions I help make when I’m at work affect the lives of countless people, many of whom I’ll never know or meet. Many of them are using technology as their primary way to learn, just as I once did.

And so, there I was, at work, in an important yet very boring meeting, goofing off, using my iPhone to screw around. When totally out of the blue, this thought popped into my head to snap me back into the proceedings…

“YOU’D BETTER STRAIGHTEN UP, YOUNG MAN!”

A person who I hadn’t thought about in years had, if only in spirit, once again tried to sternly jolt me out of my listless dawdling. Unfortunately for her – and for me – it didn’t quite have the desired effect. Rather than focus at the task at hand, I turned to Google, and typed in her name. I justhad to know.

To my dismay and sadness, but not really my shock, I didn’t find what I hoped I would. No Facebook page for Mrs. H flashed across my screen. I kept swiping frantically, scrolling search results up and down, hoping to find something. No pictures. No E-mail contact. No current address or phone number. Not even a mention of her having taught at my old elementary school.

The web, advanced as it is, capable of doing things that not I nor Mrs H. had even dreamed of back in the day, can be very blunt, very macabre, and sometimes incredibly cruel. What it did show me was her full name, an entry showing the exact place where she used to live and where I had my summer lessons, and… an opportunity for me to order a copy of her death certificate. Mrs. H had passed away, over a decade ago. Gee… thanks, Google.

At that point, I put my iPhone down on the table, sneaked past other attendees clicking away and typing notes into their netbooks, scurried past the bright LED display being used by the presenter to illustrate his abstract concepts, and walked out of the meeting. I shut the door to my office, and in front of what is now One of Many Apples that I can use whenever I want, I buried my face in my hands on the desk, not really caring if anyone would give me a stern, sharp rebuke for doing that, and had a good, long cry.

I am not nostalgic for the things we had in the past. I would not trade my iPhone for a pencil and paper. I wouldn’t give back the computers I use now to get a Commodore 64 or an Apple II. I wouldn’t dare say that the chalkboard is better than our netbooks and flat panel presentation displays of today.But what I am nostalgic for is the person responsible for opening my eyes to potential greatness of all the things we have now, and what we can do with them. I would give away every last bit of technology I own for one more “advanced” computing lesson.

It’s The Future, Mrs. H. And right now I wish, so badly, that you were here to see how awesome it all is.