1. All new design. The new phone is very thin, only 9.3mm. It has a stainless steel outer cover that doubles as the antenna for Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, UMTS, and GSM. There’s a camera and LED flash on the back, and two microphones for noise cancellation (like the Nexus One). There’s a black and a white version.
2. Retina Display. Thanks to the Retina display, everything you see and do on iPhone 4 looks amazing. Text in books, web pages, and email is crisp at any size. Images in movies and photos are stunning at almost any angle. That’s because the Retina display’s pixel density is so high, your eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels.
In a word, resolutionary - By developing pixels a mere 78 micrometers wide, Apple engineers were able to pack four times the number of pixels into the same 3.5-inch (diagonal) screen found on earlier iPhone models. The resulting pixel density of iPhone 4 — 326 pixels per inch — makes text and graphics look smooth and continuous at any size.
Brilliant, no matter how you look at it. - The iPhone 4 Retina display uses technology called IPS (in-plane switching) — the same technology used in the Apple LED Cinema Display and iPad — to achieve a wider viewing angle than on typical LCDs. Which means you can hold iPhone 4 almost any way you want and still get a brilliant picture. That’s perfect when you’re sharing photos with a friend or moving your iPhone around while playing a driving or flying game. In addition, the Retina display offers four times the contrast ratio of previous models, so whites are brighter, blacks are darker, and everything is more beautiful.
Advancements in the glass. And under it. - Made from the same materials used in helicopters and high-speed trains, the Retina display glass is chemically strengthened to be harder, more scratch resistant, and more durable than ever. The glass also features an oil-resistant coating that helps keep the screen clean.
The Retina display includes LED backlighting and an ambient light sensor that intelligently adjusts the brightness of the screen for optimal viewing and battery life. When you lift iPhone to your ear for a phone call, a proximity sensor immediately turns off the display to save power and prevent accidental dialing.
3. New processor. The iPhone 4 will use the same A4 chip used in the iPad. Along with a bigger battery, the chip provides up to 7 hours talk time, 6 hours 3G browsing, and 300 hours of standby. Up to 32GB of storage is provided.
4. Gyroscope. The new device has a real gyroscope in addition to the accelerometer that is standard now in most smart phones. The combination gives you 6-axis motion sensing. Developers can use a new CoreMotion API for extremely precise movements. The standard compass, proximity sensor, and ambient light sensor is there too.
Built-in LED flash. At a candlelit dinner, on the beach at night, or wherever the light’s not bright, you can still get great shots with iPhone 4. The advanced backside illumination sensor allows you to shoot low-light photos that are brighter and clearer than ever before. And iPhone 4 now includes a built-in LED flash that automatically fires when it’s needed.
Self-portraits made simple. Want to take a picture of yourself? The new VGA-quality front camera on iPhone 4 makes it easy. No need to flip your iPhone around to guess where you are in the frame. Instead, just activate the front camera with a tap, check your image on the display, and shoot.
Tap to focus. Autofocus keeps things sharp and the macro lens takes great close-ups. But you can also tap the iPhone display to focus on anything in the picture — a face in the background, for example — before you take the photo. Focusing also adjusts exposure and white balance automatically, so you get the best-quality photo possible.
Share your photos. Send photos via email or MMS from the Camera app. Or post them directly to your MobileMe gallery, where friends and family can browse and download them. Every photo you take is geotagged with information about your location, which you can save to your computer and share with iPhoto, Aperture, Flickr, and other compatible applications and services.
6. iOS 4. Formerly called “iPhone OS 4“, the new operating system has a ton of new features including multitasking, unified inbox, conversation threading, and so forth. Google will still be the default search engine on the iPhone but users will have the option of choosing Yahoo or Microsoft Bing.
The name change simply reflects that the same system will be running on iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. The golden master candidate of iOS 4 is being released to developers today. iOS 4 will be free to all 3GS, 3G, and iPod Touch 2nd generation users on June 21st.
An entire library in your pocket. More than an amazing ebook reader, iBooks is also a great place to browse and shop for books anytime, day or night. Browse tens of thousands of books on the iBookstore.* Search by title, author, or genre. View what’s featured on the iBookstore, best-seller lists, and more. When you find a book you like, tap it to see more details, peruse reviews, even read a sample. Download the book and it appears on your bookshelf.
Try more titles. Including PDFs. Because iBooks uses the ePub format — the most popular open book format in the world — it’s easy for publishers to create iBooks versions of your favorite reads. You can add free ePub titles to iTunes on your Mac or PC and sync them to iBooks on your iPhone. iBooks also supports PDFs, so you can sync your PDFs and read them using iBooks.
Change your reading habits. Unlike paper books — or ebooks on other devices — you can change books on iPhone to suit the way you read. Adjust the brightness. Change the text size or the font. You can also touch and hold any word to look it up in the built-in dictionary or Wikipedia, or to search for it throughout the book and on the web. Highlight text and refer to it later. iBooks even works with VoiceOver, the screen reader in iPhone, so it can read you the contents of any page.
8. iAds. Advertisements allow developers to make money on free and low-cost apps in the App Store. With the new iAd platform, there’s a standardized, supported platform to create in-app ads that don’t bounce the user out into the browser. Apple sells and hosts the ads, and developers get a 60% cut via iTunes connect (the same way you get paid for your apps).
iAds will be enabled July 1st but Apple has been selling spots for 8 weeks. So far they’ve sold over $60 million. JP Morgan estimated the entire mobile ad market to be worth $250 million this year, so that’s a significant number.
One-tap simple. FaceTime works right out of the box — no need to set up a special account or screen name. And using FaceTime is as easy as it gets. Let’s say you want to start a video call with your best friend. Just find her entry in your Contacts and tap the FaceTime button. Or maybe you’re already on a voice call with her and you want to switch to video. Just tap the FaceTime button on the Phone screen. Either way, an invitation pops up on her iPhone 4 screen asking if she wants to join you. When she accepts, the video call begins. It’s all perfectly seamless. And it works in both portrait and landscape modes.
iPhone 4 has two built-in cameras, one on the front above the display and one on the back next to the LED flash. The front camera has been tuned for FaceTime. It has just the right field of view and focal length to focus on your face at arm’s length. So it always presents you in the best possible light.
Share what you see with the back camera. Imagine your sister is away at school and can’t make it to your son’s birthday. So you’re cheering her up with a FaceTime call. As the cupcakes come out, your son’s eyes light up, and you just have to share it. Tap a button, and before you can say, “Make a wish,” iPhone 4 switches to the back camera, and to the birthday boy's big moment. Another tap switches back to the front camera and to you. Simple, fast, and fun.
10. Multitasking. – Done The Right Way. Now you can run your favorite third-party apps — and switch between them instantly — without slowing down the performance of the foreground app or draining the battery unnecessarily. This smarter approach to multitasking is available only on iPhone.
Switch between apps quickly. The multitasking user interface allows you to quickly switch between recently used apps. Just double-click the Home button to reveal your recently used apps. Scroll right to see more apps, then tap one to reopen it. No need to wait for the app to reload.
And pick up right where you left off. Apps can remember where you left off. So when you return to the app, you can jump right back into playing your game, reading the news, finding a restaurant, or whatever you were doing.
Listen to audio in the background. Now you can listen to audio from compatible third-party apps while checking email, surfing the web, playing games, and performing other tasks. So when you want to follow a ball game or listen to music from Pandora, your productivity never skips a beat.
Get VoIP calls while using other apps. Third-party apps such as Skype let you make voice calls over the Internet. Multitasking in iPhone 4 makes it possible to receive these Skype or VoIP calls while other apps are running, even when your iPhone is locked. And during a call, you can keep the conversation going while you switch to another task, such as checking a movie listing or reading an email.
Keep GPS apps running. Apps that use GPS can continue to run in the background. Not only do they constantly update your position, they can also give you spoken turn-by-turn directions even as you listen to music (the music volume lowers while the directions are spoken). It’s perfect for social networking apps, too. Now you and your friends can find each other even when you’re not actively using the app.
Receive push and local notifications. Third-party apps and services can send alerts and messages directly to your phone. So you can get sports scores, news updates, game requests, reminders, alarms, and more the moment they happen, without having to open the app that’s providing the notification.
Complete tasks in the background. If you’re performing a task that’s taking awhile — such as uploading pictures to a photo service — you can switch to another app without interrupting the task. No more waiting around.
11. HD Video Recording - Because your iPhone goes with you everywhere, you’re always ready to capture every moment. And with iPhone 4, you can do it in stunning high definition. Its advanced backside illumination sensor delivers great-looking video in both bright and low-light settings. And in dark environments, you can brighten the scene with the built-in LED light.
Edit video right on iPhone. No need to wait until you’re back at your computer to edit video. You can perform basic editing right in the Camera app. Just drag to select start and end points on a filmstrip.
Turn your video clips into a finished movie. With iMovie on iPhone 4. You’re on vacation, and you want to create a video postcard of everything you did that day and share it with your family. Just use the iMovie app — coming soon to the App Store for just $4.99. Built just for iPhone 4, iMovie lets you combine and edit video clips, polish your movies with dynamic themes and transitions, add music and photos, and share your finished movies with the world.
Tap to focus video. Say you’re recording a scene with subjects in both the foreground and the background. How do you make sure the camera focuses where you want? Just tap that part of the image on the iPhone 4 display. The camera immediately focuses on it and adjusts exposure to match the lighting. When you want to focus on another part of the scene, just tap again.
Make a video self-portrait. In addition to the high-definition camera on the back, iPhone 4 has a VGA-quality camera on the front, above the display, that lets you see yourself while you record. So it’s perfect for taking a video self-portrait — no more guessing if you’re in the frame or accidentally cropping yourself out altogether.
Share video anywhere. Say you’re in the middle of a text message conversation when you see something video-worthy. Tap the camera icon in Messages to record on the fly and send it to your buddy via MMS. Or select some video from the Camera Roll and attach it to a new email message, ready to send. Publishing to your MobileMe gallery or to YouTube is also just a tap away. And you can easily sync all the video you shoot on iPhone 4 back to your Mac or PC.
Creating a folder is easy. To create a folder, touch and hold an app until it wiggles, drag it onto another app, and you’re done. You can repeat the process with more apps. For example, you can put all the games your daughter plays in one folder, all your news apps in another, and all your productivity apps in yet another. You can also create folders and organize apps using iTunes on your Mac or PC, then sync it all back to your iPhone.
Naming your folders — it’s automatic. iPhone automatically assigns a name to your folder based on the category of the apps inside it: Games, News, Sports, and so on. Of course, you can change the folder names to whatever you want, such as Katie’s Games or Baseball Apps.
Download apps to your heart’s content. You can have up to 180 folders on your iPhone. And since each folder can hold 12 apps, that means you can keep up to 2160 apps organized on your iPhone at any time. Which is a great way to use all those gigabytes of storage available in iPhone 4.
So how much is all this going to cost you? With a 2 year contract, $199 for the 16GB model and $299 for the 32GB model. AT&T will let you upgrade to an iPhone 4 6 months earlier than usual if you re-up for another 2 years.
Preorders start June 15th, with the phone in stores on June 24th. 18 more countries in July, 24 more in August, and 40 more in September (total of 88 countries).
As soon as I get the phone, and the bumper, I will be posting a review!
No comments:
Post a Comment