June 3, 2010 – On Monday June 7, 2010 at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, CEO Steve Jobs introduced the new iPhone 4. With an all new design and amazing build quality, the iPhone 4 is the thinnest smartphone ever at just 9.3 millimeters thick. The front and back surfaces are made of a chemically strengthened and scratch resistant glass said to be 30 times harder than plastic and the stainless steel side band is made from a custom alloy that is forged to be five times stronger than standard steel. What’s interesting is the 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth antennas are actually build into the steel side band which theoretically should improve reception.
The new 3.5″ Retina display measures of 960 x 640 pixels, that’s four times as many pixels as my iPhone 3Gs. The resulting resolution is 326 pixels per inch which is so dense the human is unable to distinguish individual pixels when the phone is held at a normal distance. This makes text, images and video look sharper, smoother and more realistic than ever before on an electronic display.
Photographers will like the new 5 MP autofocus camera with backside illuminated sensor and 5x digital zoom. Apple also included an LED flash that allows you to take great pictures even in low light situations. In addition to stills, the iPhone 4 will shoot 720p HD video at 30 fps and the same great tap to focus feature used for still shooting works with video. If you need additional light for your video, the LED flash can be turned on for continuous lighting. Apple’s new iMovie app for iPhone lets you combine movie clips, add dynamic transitions and themes and include photos and music, and users can buy it for $4.99 through the App Store.
Apple is claiming iPhone 4 will get seven hours of talk time on 3G networks, up to 10 hours of web browsing on Wi-Fi and up to six hours on 3G, up to 10 hours of video playback and up to 40 hours of audio playback. The iPhone 4 is powered by Apple’s new A4 processor which provides exceptional processor and graphic performance along with long battery life.
One of the coolest new features is called FaceTime and it allows you to make video calls from iPhone 4 to iPhone 4. The new front facing camera has just the right field of view and focal length to focus on your face at arm’s length. With a tap of the screen you can switch to the back camera and show the other person what you’re looking at, then tap again and FaceTime switches back to the front camera. At first you will only be able to make FaceTime calls over a Wi-Fi network, but Apple is working with the mobile providers to make it possible over the 3G network.
iPhone 4 comes with iOS4 (iPhone Operating System Version 4) that includes many new features and capabilities like multitasking, folders, enhanced mail, deeper enterprise support and Apple’s new iAd mobile advertising platform. The iPhone operating system has been renamed iOS4 because it will run on other devices like the iPod Touch and iPad and Apple felt calling it iPhone OS 4 was no longer appropriate. To read more about the great new features of iOS4 check out my previous post “Apple Introduces iPhone OS 4”.
The iPhone has proved to be a great gaming device in the past and iPhone 4 will be even better. Apple added a build-in 3-axis gyro that when combined with the accelerometer provides 6-axis motion sensing such as up and down, side to side, forward and backward and pitch and roll. Game developers will have access to the gyro using the new CoreMotion API to make games and other apps that go well beyond what other mobile devices offer.
The new iBooks app will be available for iPhone 4 as a free download from the App Store and includes Apple’s new iBookstore. The iBooks app will sync your current place in a book, along with any bookmarks, highlights and notes you have created, between copies of the same book on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch®. iBooks users can also now read and store PDFs right in iBooks.
The iPhone 4 will be come in a black or white 16GB model for $199 or a 32GB model for $299 and will be available in the US, France, Germany, Japan and the UK on June 24th. Pre-orders begin on Tuesday, June 15th from the Apple Online Store or you can reserve an iPhone 4 to pick up at or local retail Apple Store. iOS4 will be available as a free download for iPhone 3G, 3Gs and iPod Touch users on June 21st.
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Founder of Current Photographer, co-host of The Digital Photography Cafe Show, Designer, Photographer, and overall tech geek.