This article discusses the iPhone’s screen and how it may be more expensive to make than originally estimated.

AskTog. Andy Ihnatko.

Everyone is worried about the iPhone’s lack of buttons and how that will make it hard to dial when you aren’t looking at the phone. Typing text messages may be difficult, too. The Nokia Internet Tablets (770 and N800) have a touch keyboard with large buttons that pops up when you are entering text with your fingers instead of your stylus. I have less than perfect accuracy with that interface. What we need is tactile feedback for our touch screens.

It turns out that at least one company makes such a thing. Immersion has a white paper on the topic which includes this description:

Immersion proprietary TouchSense technology causes the touchscreen to vibrate, creating the feeling of pressing mechanical switches, emulating crisp qualities and particular force and release characteristics. TouchSense tactile feedback is controlled by the application software, so touching different onscreen objects produces the optimal, desired, context-sensitive feel.

On the iPhone, what if the buttons will FEEL different than the rest of the screen. What if, additionally, the screen is pressure sensitive and it will require you to put down more pressure so you can touch the buttons without pressing them. Maybe Multi-Touch isn’t the only hardware innovation going on here.

This could be really good.

And if Apple didn’t go in this direction? There is another possibility. What if the screen itself will have ridges or raised surfaces or textures where the buttons are? Note that they don’t want to use a stylus. A stylus could rub against those imperfections and hurt the screen, while your fingers won’t cause any damage. Maybe these ridges and raised surfaces can appear and disappear at runtime in predetermined (like memory wire) or (better) dynamic locations. I guess we’ll ‘see’ soon enough.

It seemed inevitable that Cisco would sue Apple for their use of iPhone. It sounds like they actually tried to work out a solution where the name would still be on Apple’s phone, but in the end they couldn’t agree. Very interesting! Having multiple devices with the same name, but very different functionality is a big problem, even for us tech-weenies. It makes it harder to web search for the product you are interested in. It causes a lot of confusion for our non-techie peers and family members. And if a name change does happen because of it, the confusion gets even worse. All of a sudden, you’d have to search for iPhone(ignoring cisco stuff) and applePhone to get a complete picture.

Yes, the iPhone is awesome. Multi-Touch, beautiful interface/apps, landscape/portrait auto flip – ROCK! However, there are lies (damn lies) abounding about the product and I think it’s best if I correct some of those right now.

Lie #1: It’s a closed system. You can’t run your own code on it. Truth #1: Yeah, right. Our people will set that thing free just DAYS after launch. Homebrew code will run. Period.

Lie #2: It will be EDGE at launch, not UMTS or HSDPA. Truth #2: I think Steve and company are pulling our legs. No WAY is that thing going to be released without something faster than EDGE. Imagine the negative experience people would have when they can’t stream video on their $500 (+2yr contract) phone and a guy with a $100 phone in the next seat is streaming CNN. Too risky to release without at least UMTS. Come on Steve, get real. Kam will back me up on this.

Lie #3: You can only use the phone on Cingular. Truth #3: Almost all phones have unlock scripts. I think we’ll see unlocked iPhones on eBay just weeks after the launch. For $1000.

So, there you have it! The truth about the iPhone. Brought to you by the AMAZING Eric Albert (who, coincidentally, also brought you OSX86)!

Oh, and you know how apple says this is first device to have a full size browser on a phone? Well, check out the N800 if you want the first full size browser that fits in your pocket!!!

Scoble put up his take on the iPhone. He complains about no GPS, cingular-only and no replaceable battery. I’m with him on the cingular thing (especially EDGE only), but I can live without GPS. External battery packs are all over the place for the ipod and that kind of solution is fine with me. That being said, I can see why someone who relies on those two features would be put off. Paul’s comments all have merit, too.