08/12/07 20:29

Three things you (probably) don’t know about the iPhone

by Josep M. Ganyet

Posted in Apple, Interface, Typography, Usability | No Comments » Tweet This Post

By now, everything has been written, reviewed, praised and criticized about Apple’s iPhone. But there’s three features that don’t hit the highlights too often.

Helvetica everywhere!!!

Yes, Helvetica is the font for the iPhone. No Verdana nor pixel fonts but plain old Helvetica in decent readable sizes of up to 20px with nice antialiasing. Check the iPhone’s design guidelines at Apples Developer Center. (by the way, Helvetica the movie is out. Go and watch it)

Screen resolution of 160 dpi

When I first saw an iPhone I thought it still had the plastic film that covers most phones with some icons printed on it. Wrong. I was actually looking at the bright icons at a resolution of 160 dots per inch. Our eyes are used to dealing with screen resolutions ranging from 72 to 96 dpi. (I had the same impression when I first saw the Sony Reader).

The mic in the headset controls iTunes

This was the last feature I discovered and it was just some weeks ago. The distinctive white headphones come with a small microphone attached to the right chord. Well, if pressed while listening to iTunes it pauses the song, if pressed twice it skips the current song and if pressed while ringing it answers the call.

And all this without ever reading the phone’s manual.

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