The iTouch vs iPhone smackdown
September/22/2007
I was at The Apple Store yesterday, checking out the iTouch, since it looked like a good way for me to listen to music, check webmail, and store a few photos. I brought up my website on the demo unit's browser and started looking at some of my shots. Mostly I was curious about reports online that the screen had some issues with the shadows in photographs ... the reports said that iTouch shadows were darker than the same images rendered on the iPhone. Since it's not that difficult to remember how your own images should look (hours in Photoshop, ya know) I figured that checking the appearance of certain photos on my website would be a valid test.
The image above was the deal-breaker for me. On the iTouch, it didn't look like it does here ... the image's wide dynamic range demonstrated the iTouch screen's limitations. On my color-managed monitor at home, the lower part of this photo retains -- just barely -- some detail. On the iTouch screen the bottom third of the shot descends into darkness, and unfortunately those blocked-up shadows aren't acceptable for my purposes. Now, you may not be particularly concerned about the critical rendering of photographs on your iTouch (a lot of people probably aren't) and if that's the case, this issue won't matter much at all.
Don't get me wrong ... I'm a huge fan of Apple products, and the fact that the store was completely sold out of its first shipment of the iTouch shows that this may only be an issue if you're serious about color-managed photography. On the other hand, maybe people won't notice the problem until later...
[Update: One report indicates that an iTouch software update eliminates the problem]