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June 7, 2010

Apple CEO Steve Jobs today has unveiled its highly-rumored new iPhone 4 iOS at the company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The new smartphone has about one-hundred new features that aren't available in the current model, the iPhone 3 GS.

Some of the biggest improvements include a higher-resolution screen, a battery with more capacity for the same physical size, a high-definition photo and video camera, a gyroscope for improved rotation sensitivity and a thinner but more industrial look.

Apple's all new iPhone iOS 4 has been completely redesigned and is almost 25 percent thinner than the iPhone 3 GS. Steve Jobs called the new iPhone the thinnest smart phone on earth.

The new device will go on sale in the U.S. June 24th for $199 for a 16 gigabyte model, and $299 for a 32 gigabyte model. That's the same pricing scheme and size availability offered for the iPhone 3 GS. The phone will be available in 88 countries by mid-September, Jobs said.

The iPhone 4's biggest new feature, which Jobs saved for his famous "one more thing" announcement, is the front-facing camera, which allows users to make video calls. Called FaceTime, iPhone 4 users will be able to video chat with any other iPhone 4 user using Wi-Fi.

Apple said the feature won't be available over 3G this year, but Apple is working with its global mobile carriers to carry the feature over wireless networks in the near future, and Jobs is confident that it should be working my mid-August.

"A lot of you have already seen this," said Jobs, adding, "believe me, you ain't seen it." When looking at the leaked photos, many wondered about the slits in the metal band surrounding the phone. Jobs revealed Monday that there are actually three bands, which are the new iPhone's antenna.

Jobs already unveiled the new phone's operating system about six weeks ago, which on Monday, Apple renamed it "iOS 4." The new OS will be available to iPhone 3G, 3 GS and 4 users by July for most of the continental United States.

The new wireless handset will allow multitasking, use of folders, access to Apple's iBooks app and the new "iAd" mobile advertising network, though not all of the functions will be available on the old iPhones.

And the other new features didn't disappoint either. The screen's resolution has been vastly improved, displaying 326 pixels per inch, which is four times the resolution of the iPhone 3 GS. The new smartphone will give users the ability to talk for 7 hours on one single battery charge, up from five hours on the iPhone 3 GS.

The iOS 4 will also allow users to record and edit video in high-definition, and it has the same A4 chip that operates the iPad.

Though this was the first time that Apple discussed its new device, images of a prototype were leaked on the Internet in April.

As for the iPad, which went on sale in early April, Jobs said Apple has sold over 2 million units. In addition to the more than 200,000 iPhone apps that can run on the iPad, the company said there are now more than 8,500 native apps for the iPad.

For those who were wondering if the iPad's iBookstore could compete with Amazon's Kindle, Apple's iBookstore has taken a 21.9 percent market share of the e-books market in just two months, according to Jobs.

Earlier this month, Apple said that many improvements will be made to iBooks, the iPad's e-reader application, including added control to the bookmark page, the ability to view and read PDF files and the ability to make notes.

It has also been rumored that Jobs would unveil an update to Apple's Safari Web browser, a new Macintosh operating system, new Mac computers, an iTunes update that allows users to access their music on the Internet, and perhaps even a new Apple TV device.

Jobs' keynote address at the developer conference concluded without mentioning any wireless devices other than the iPad and the iPhone.

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Source: Apple Inc.