World Of Tourism

The release of the iPhone 4 did not go that well for a number of reasons – one is because the white version was delayed, and the other was because of the poor reception caused by its external antenna, which Apple has since apologized for. However, Stuart Hughes has solved both these issues with the iPhone 4 Diamond Edition.

There has already been a wooden veneer, but you have to admit that this looks awesome. However, the downside it its $20,000 price tag. The Apple logo on the rear has been bedazzled, but it is those diamonds on the edge where the antenna is that has caught my eye.

These means two things, you can hold the handset anyway you wish and you do not have to put a Bumper on it to make a call without losing a signal. We are not sure when the iPhone 4 Diamond Edition will be available, and if it will make it before the official white one becomes available.

Donald Melanson from Engadget explains that this fourth-generation iPhone is an unlocked 32GB model, so you can use it on whatever carrier you wish.

There's no mistaking Apple's new iPhone 4 for any of its three predecessors. This angular, precisely-machined device -- only three-eighths of an inch thick -- looks and feels little like the smooth, streamlined iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS.

The innards of the iPhone 4 -- $199 for a model with 16 gigabytes of storage, $299 for a 32 GB version, with AT&T the only service option in the United States -- offer other departures from the past.

Begin with its 3.5-inch "Retina Display" -- named because, Apple says, the human eye cannot discern all of its 960-by-640-pixel resolution from a foot away. When you view a picture, zoom in on a map or read a book in an application like Apple's iBooks or Amazon's Kindle, the complete absence of the usual jagged, bitmapped edges is arresting.

The iPhone 4's cameras also represent a major advance. One on the back offers 5 megapixels of resolution and (finally) a flash, plus high-definition video recording. It exhibited almost no shutter lag and took beautiful shots outdoors. But photos in low-light situations showed too much noise, and without optical image stabilization some shots come out blurry.

As a video device, the iPhone 4 constitutes a serious threat to Cisco's Flip cameras. Its footage looks as good as a Flip's, but it can easily share a video on the go. And with Apple's $4.99 iMovie application, you can even edit the clip and add effects like titles and transitions.

The iPhone 4's other camera sits above its screen on the front. Its weak 640-by-480 pixel resolution will suffice for self-portraits posted online and little else. But it also supports FaceTime, Apple's video-chatting system. Call somebody with another iPhone 4, and if both devices have a WiFi connection to the Internet you can switch to a blurry video chat after tapping an onscreen button and waiting a few seconds.

FaceTime failed in the Post's newsroom, where the network firewall blocks some types of Internet data it requires -- and by not coughing up an error message, FaceTime left both of us guessing. It worked from my wife's office and through two connections at home.