Apple iPhone 3G S

Playback (4.6)

The video playback on the iPhone 3G S is more straightforward than the average camcorder, though its features rival those of the best camcorder.

When you tap the Camera icon from the home page, the phone is immediately shifted into pre-record mode for still photos. Even if you were last shooting in video mode, it always defaults to still mode. In the lower-left corner of the screen is a thumbnail of your last video or still photo. Tap that to enter playback mode. You can also tap the Photos button from the home page.

All of your videos and still are presented in a table of thumbnails (seen below), four across. Rather than making you flip through page after page of thumbnails, as so many camcorders do, the iPhone allows for an apparently infinite number of rows. You simply flick up and down to scroll through them all. This alone makes the iPhone a stand-out video device. There are also buttons at the top to filter for just photos or just videos.

Still playback		Video playback

To view a video, just tap the thumbnail. The screen will appear as above, with a large play button in the centre and some menu options on the top and the bottom. The most intriguing feature is the in-camera editing control. It's not terribly ambitious in its scope – it simply allows you to trim the clips beginning and end points – but the controls are damn near perfect in its intuitive interface. This is far simpler than the average camcorder. Sure, most modern camcorders offer advanced functionality like joining clips together, or tacking on a pre-loaded soundtrack, but the interface is so convoluted we can't imagine that the tools see much use. On the iPhone, the Trim tool is always at the top of the screen if you need it, but it's not screen clutter.

The other key feature is almost a holy grail of camcorders – instant, in-camera upload to YouTube. It must sting the big manufacturers (including Pure Digital) terribly to see the iPhone get there ahead of them. On the heels of the Flip camcorder's prowess at smoothing the YouTube upload process, nearly every 2009 camcorder included some form of upload software, ranging from the simple to the completely obtuse. But every one of these camcorders required a computer as the intermediary device for uploading. Pure Digital's recent acquisition by Cisco promises some interesting technologies down the line, but the iPhone is here right now offering that very service. True, it's certainly not HD video, but it's a start.

The photo album display

Connectivity (2.88)

The iPhone is limited in its connectivity, but only compared to most camcorders. Being a media player, the 3G S obviously has a headphone jack and, in fact, ships with a pair of standard white Apple in-ear headphones. For file transfer, the iPhone includes a proprietary USB cable, which can plug into your computer or into the included wall outlet adapter. You can also purchase a separate composite AV cable, which will allow you to view photos and videos on a television.

The main connection port on the bottom.

Perhaps the handiest connectivity feature on the iPhone 3G S is its WiFi connection, which allows you to upload videos directly to YouTube or your Apple MobileMe account. That means you can share your videos from anywhere, without the hassle of exporting to a computer. Some digital cameras now include WiFi and we expect camcorders will eventually have this feature as well. For now, however, this is a pretty unique feature that the iPhone does not share with traditional camcorders.