iDream of iPhone

catherine.hill

Cat HillJuice Reporter

The iPhone has been making a splash in the communication and technology field since its debut in 2007. In that time there have been numerous changes in its firmware and now, with the iPhone 4, its shape, external features and carrier.

The newest release from Apple no longer maintains the rounded look that the previous three models displayed. This model is crisper and more rectangular. The iPhone 4 now features a front facing camera and a traditional camera with a flash.

The front facing camera is definitely great for those people who change their Facebook profile pictures more often than their underwear, but the neatest feature of the front facing camera is the video chatting capabilities with FaceTime and Skype applications.

FaceTime, which is also compatible with the newest generation of iTouch, brings a whole new dimension to phone calls. This allows the user to actually see the person they are talking to. Simply establish a Wi-Fi connection and let the chatting commence. The quality of the video is wonderful thanks to the HD capabilities of the video camera.

Let’s not forget the immense number of applications available for the iPhone and iTouch. As of October 2010, there are over 300,000 third-party applications in circulation. This includes the ever famous “Angry Birds” and the more common Facebook and Twitter applications.

There’s also fun apps like “strobe light,” an app that will allow the user to bring the party lights with them everywhere they go. You can literally have a “party in your pants” anytime- if you so choose.

Many of these applications are free and many developers offer “lite” versions which are free, have limited functionality, and allow the user to test the product before purchasing the full version.

I have owned an iPhone since the second generation 3G model, and now I currently own the iPhone 4. I find it to be phenomenal! I can easily check my e-mail, text my mom so she knows that I’m alive, amuse myself with Angry Birds and quickly pull up a random fact off Google with just a few strokes of my finger.

Being from Connecticut, I have AT&T, which is why I own the iPhone 4. But now all Midwesterner’s can own it too. Verizon announced on February 10 that they’re releasing the iPhone on their nation-wide network. This is good news to the nearly 100 million Verizon users.

Smartphones like the iPhone are dominating the cell phone market in today’s mobile world. So what is the future for non-smart phones?

“It’s hard for me to imagine being able to buy a “dumb phone’ five or ten years from now,” said Matt Cecil, journalism and mass communications associate professor. “It has become pretty clear that single-use devices are not the way of the future.”

With the expansion of the iPhone network, the opportunities for education are abounding.

“I am developing a course that puts our students to work conceptualizing smart phone and tablet apps and content within a mobile context,” Cecil said. “We encourage our students to be early adopters of technology and I have found that a majority of our students already have smart phones and are very active consumers of mobile media. That’s where the content is going to go, so our students need to have a good understanding of that world.”

If you’d like to be one of the first to receive a Verizon iPhone, just sign up on Verizon’s website.

#1.1918866:2029080365.png:iphone-GALLAGHER.png:The iPhone 4 sports a new look and provides users with multiple new features, including a front facing camera.:Collegian Photo by Robby Gallagher