Apple announces the new iPhone 4 at WWDC 2010! is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

The wait is finally over, and Apple has officially announced it’s next “Magical” product, iPhone 4! In a keynote that started out focusing on where the iPhone has come from and where it’s heading, Steve Jobs highlighted a variety of new features offered for the iPhone 4 and iOS4, plus his customary “one more thing” at the end of the keynote.

- Design -
Whether or not you are impressed with the iPhone’s feature set, you have to admit that the new design that Apple has come up with looks very slick. The glass on both sides of the steel border looks very sharp, and gives it a very professional feel. iPhone 4 also includes the expected front-facing camera, as well as an LED flash, 5 mega-pixel rear camera, and it uses a Micro-SIM card like the recently released iPad 3G.

One of the most impressive things about this device is its form factor. Not only did Apple manage to add new features and maintain battery life, but they did so while making the device 25% thinner! During the keynote Steve Jobs even heralded iPhone 4 as “the thinnest smartphone in the world” which is an especially impressive achievement when you look at all the features that Apple packed into their new device!

A few other small things that Apple added/updated are a second microphone that is used for noise-cancelling, two separate buttons for volume control, and a vibrate switch that looks to be more heavy duty. While most of these features are more cosmetic, the noise cancellation will definitely come in handy if it works well!

The main thing, looking at this design, that I am a little worried about is the iPhone 4’s durability. The build looks to be solid enough, but if the front and back are made of glass, my question is how will it hold up to being dropped? Steve did mention during the keynote that the glass was of the same grade that is used in military helicopter windshields, but it’s still glass and so I’m a bit skeptical.

- Antennas -
The next feature that Jobs went on to highlight is the antenna. One of the things that allowed the engineers at Apple to make their new phone so thin is the fact that the metal border on the phone is actually used as the phone’s antenna! You’ll notice along the sides of the phone that the border is divided into a couple of pieces. One piece of the border acts as the antenna for wifi, bluetooth, etc while the other piece acts as the antenna for all of the cellular signals.

Will this improve network performance with the new iPhone? Steve didn’t really talk much about why they came up with the new design, or how it would affect performance. Regardless, even if it offers comparable reception the design was worth the effort because not only does it look great, but it is one of the things that enabled Apple to make the iPhone 4 so much thinner!

- Display -
Apple also introduced their new “Retina Display” that is bringing a 940-640 pixel resolution to the same 3.5″ iPhone display! The reference to “retina” refers to the fact that the human eye can only distinguish about 300 pixels per square inch and this new display packs an amazing 326, which is four times as many as the previous generation iPhone! The screen also uses the same IPS display that’s found in the iPad and has an improved contrast ration of 800:1 over older iPhone models.

- Processor and Battery -
As expected, the iPhone 4 features the same, custom-built, A4 chip that was used for the iPad. This allows for not only better performance, but also improved battery life because of the built-in power management features of the A4.

Another result of the new design and smaller components, such as the processor and Micro-SIM card, is that the size of the built-in battery was increased. That combined with the power-saving A4 chip result the new iPhone providing up to 7 hours of 3G talk time, 6 hours of 3G surfing, 10 hours of WiFi Surfing, and 300 hours of standby time!

- Cameras -
Not only does the iPhone 4 offer a front-facing camera, it also includes an upgraded rear camera! Jobs talked about how so many people have been focused on how many “mega-pixels” a camera has, when in reality more megapixels do not always guarantee a clearer photo. Not only did Apple increase the rear-camera’s resolution to 5.0 megapixels, but they also increased the sensor size for increased picture clarity, and included a “backside illuminated sensor” to help make photos in poor lighting better!

The camera also offers the ability to record Video in full HD (720p at 30fps)! The video during the keynote looked extremely clean, but we’ll just have to see how it compares with other cameras/phones in the real world.

- iOS4 -
Not really anything new to report on this front except that Apple is no longer referring to it is the “iPhone OS,” but have instead opted to call it the iOS. This of course recognizing the fact that it also runs on the iTouch and iPad devices.

- iMovie and iBooks -
These “features” come in the form of new apps! As expected Apple is releasing a custom version of iBooks for the iPhone in iOS4. The app looks a lot like it’s larger iPad counterpart, and offers the same feature set as well. In a slightly more surprising move, Apple is also including the ability to open/manage PDF files within the iBooks app in iOS4 as well!

In addition to iBooks Apple is also releasing an amazingly powerful iMovie app that can be used for editing video natively on the iPhone 4! The app has a variety of different functions from transitions, to adding pictures, and music. It will offer a very familiar feel to users of the Desktop iMovie in a handheld format and will be available for $4.99 in the App Store!

- Gyroscope -
This one was probably the most unexpected of all the new feature announcements. Not only will the iPhone 4 offer an accelerometer and a compass, but it will include a 3-axis gyroscope! this is tied together with the already built in accelerometer to give developers access to a full 6-axis motion sensing mechanism. This is something that will definitely be used by developers in future game development!

- FaceTime -
In a classic “one more thing” moment with Steve Jobs, we witnessed Apple’s first attempt at live video chat on a handheld device! FaceTime allows you to connect in a new way with your mobile phone by allowing you to see who you’re talking to on the other end. You can use either of the iPhone 4’s cameras interchangeably to allow the other party to either see your face, or what you’re looking at.

At least for 2010 FaceTime will only work via WiFi while Apple works with various carriers to prepare their networks for a data-intensive feature like video chat. Steve also made a rather ambiguous reference to the fact that they plan to ship “tens of millions of FaceTime devices” this year. Only time will tell if this is a reference to a new update of the iTouch, iPad, or if it references the fact that Apple is looking to expand this feature outside of its own handheld devices!

Conclusion
While I do have a few small reservations, I am definitely excited to get my hands on one of these new devices and see how they performs in the real world! The pricing on the iPhone 4 is the same as the previous generations ($199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB), and the phone will be offered in white or black beginning on June 24th.

If you really want to get your hands on one as soon as possible though I’d recommend that you pre-order when Apple starts taking them on June 17th! If you’d like a reminder you can sign up to have Apple send you an email when the reorders begin at http://www.apple.com/iphone/notify-me/.

Well that’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll be doing a more thorough review and giving my thoughts when I actually get my hands on one at a later date. In the mean time I’d love to hear your thoughts on the newest “iDevice” in the Apple family, so please feel free to leave any comments you might have on this post or email me at david(at)appshouter.com!

~David H.

© 2010, iPhone and iPad app reviews. All rights reserved. An expedite fee may have been paid for some reviews. We work diligently to ensure that this does not affect the content of the review and strive to keep the journalistic integrity intact. All reviews are the personal opinion of the reviewer.

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