Apple releases new iPhone model - The iPhone 4

[FG XR]

We may have seen some grainy images of the new iPhone leaked onto a website earlier than Steve Jobs would have liked but the Apple boss still had plenty of surprises up his sleeve when he officially revealed iPhone 4 today.
The new iPhone 4 features an all-new look and design, an updated operating system and the ability to make video calls.

Jobs took the stage to deliver his keynote address for the WorldWide Developers Conference (WWDC) at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco today for the expected new iPhone reveal.

“Stop me if you’ve seen this before,” Jobs said tongue-in-cheek on stage in reference to the incident which saw an early version of the new iPhone end up lost/stolen in a Redwood City bar and turn up on the Gizmodo tech blog.

Not so co-incidentally, Gizmodo was not invited to today’s keynote.

iPhone 4, which will be available in Australia in July, is just 9.3mm thick – which is 24 per cent thinner than the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S.

In fact, Jobs called the iPhone "the thinnest smartphone in the world" .

iPhone 4 will be available in black or white and in 16GB and 32GB capacities.

“This is our new baby, we hope you love it as much as we do,” Jobs said.

The iPhone 4 is framed with an aluminium band which is designed to not only provide structural strength and more volume to cram in all the technology but it is designed to work as the phone’s antenna as well.

There are two microphones, one for use during calls and the other to assist with noise cancellation for better audio quality while making those calls.

But the real eye-catcher was the 3.5-inch touchscreen which boasts an all-new technology called retina display.

Retina display provides 326 pixels per square inch to deliver a remarkably sharp screen which is greater than the limit of the human retina at 300 pixels.

The screen resolution is 960 x 640 which is four times better than the existing iPhone. Also four times better is the iPhone 4’s 800:1 contrast ratio.

Web pages now render much clearer, as do pictures and video.

Speaking of pictures and video, there is also an upgraded camera on board with 5MP resolution and with a built-in LED flash for low light conditions.

On the video side, the iPhone 4’s new camera can also capture high definition video at 720p at 30 frames per second.

Videos can even be edited in the device with Apple’s new iMovie app built especially for iPhone.

The app takes the smarts of the full-blown application and shrinks it down for use in the iPhone and includes the ability to add titles, transitions and music.

But there is also a front-facing camera which can allow for Apple’s new video calling service called FaceTime.

Users can switch between the front and back camera and also tilt the phone into either landscape or portrait mode.

This will only be possible between iPhone 4 users and, in the US at least, only over Wi-Fi for the time being with Jobs alluding to the fact it will eventually be available across the cellular networks.

In Australia - where the networks have had the ability to make video calls for years - it is unknown if this feature will work on the network as well as Wi-Fi at launch.

Under the hood, Apple has also included its own speedy A4 processor along with a larger battery which can deliver even longer battery life with enough power for 10 hours of video playback and up to 40 per cent more talk time.

Also on-board is a new gyroscope which gives the iPhone the ability to give on-screen objects six-axis motion.

Jobs demonstrated this with the Jenga app, which showed a tower of wooden block which could be rotated at a number of angles.

But it was not all smooth sailing for Jobs on stage with his demonstrations.

During one demo where he tried to show the enhanced screen compared with the regular screen by viewing a website, the over-loaded Wi-Fi network in the room wouldn’t budge.

Knowing he had more demonstrations which would rely on the wireless connection, he even asked attendees to switch off the Wi-Fi connections on their laptops to allow the presentation to continue.

The demos which followed, including the first video call between Jobs and Apple’s industrial design chief Jonny Ive, went without a hitch.

Jobs also announced the iBooks app and the included iBookstore will also be available for the iPhone 4 along with the ability to buy, read and synch the same books to the page you’re up to on an iPhone, iPod Touch or an iPad.

This feature, seen already with the Kindle device and its iPhone and iPad apps, will be another part of Amazon’s territory Apple will be moving in on.

iBooks will now also be able to read PDF format documents along with the epub format books.

Jobs also showcased iAds which are ways for developers to create free and low cost apps that can be embedded into mobile web pages on the iPhone.

Revenues for iAds - which will run in the second half of the year and include some of the world’s biggest brands such as Nissan, BestBuy, Target, Disney, Unilever and AT&T - are already up to more than $US60m.

This represents 40 per cent of the projected mobile display advertising revenue.

The iPhone 4.0 software is now called the iOS4 software because it will now run on the iPhone and the iPad.

The 4.0 operating system will be available to iPhone 3G and 3G S users from June 21 for free.