Calling it the biggest leap since the original iPhone, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the new iPhone 4 to a clapping crowd at the annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference in San Francisco.
Jobs called the new device the thinnest smart phone on the planet, and announced it would have a front-facing camera.
There’s a front-facing camera, a receiver, a micro-SIM tray, a camera with LED flash in the back. On bottom, a mic, 30-pin connector, and speaker. On top, a second mic, second sleep/wake button, and noise-cancellation button.
It turns out there are three lines in the stainless steel structure of the phone. The slits in it are part of the engineering. It uses the stainless steel band as part of the antenna system.
Integrated antenna right in the structure of the phone. “Really cool engineering,” he says. The glass is for better optical quality and scratch resistance, he says.
Second new thing: A retina display. “What’s that?” In any display there are pixels. With retina display we dramatically increase the pixel density. Four times as many in the same amount of space. 326 pixels per inch. Contrast ratio is 800 to 1.
iPhone OS 4 makes it so your apps automatically run on the retina display, full size, he says.
The iPhone is powered by the A4 chip, designed in house.
The iPhone 4 is packed to gills on the inside, he says. He points out they used a micro SIM because it’s smaller and they needed the space. The biggest thing in there is the battery. Now it’s a little bit bigger.
Since battery is bigger and A4 is good at power management. There is 7 hours of talk time now. 6 hours of 3G browing, 10 hours of WIFI browsing, and 300 hours of standby. Environmental report card: arsenic, mercury, BFR free, he says.
Up to 32 GB of storage. Quadband HSDPA/HSUPA.
Another new piece of hardware. We’re taking it further, we’re adding a gyroscope, he says. A 3-axis gyro with pitch, roll, and yaw. It’s tied with accelerometer to provide 6-axis motion sensing. New CoreMotion APIs for extremely precise positioning.
Next up: the new camera. “We’ve gone from 3 MP to 5 MP sensor, but we’re using something that’s new to smarpthones, a back side illuminated sensor”, he says. “Gets the wiring out of the way. We’ve gone from 3 to 5 MP but kept pixels the same size, 1.75 microns.” There’s a 5X digital zoom, tap to focus, and LED flash built in.
Camera also does HD video recording, he says. 720p at 30 frames per second. There’s also tap to focus for video. Can edit videos right on phone. Also has 1-click sharing and the LED flash will stay on for the HD video recording. We’re going even further than that, he says. We’ve written iMovie for iPhone. Can use the app in portrait or landscape. You can record directly into a video timeline within the app. Can pinch to change the scale of the timeline. Or drag to trim/edit. Can pan/zoom, add effects, transitions, themes. The camera will bring in geo location information too, to the video.
OK, now onto iPhone OS 4. “We’re renaming the OS. Now it’s just iOS 4.” Because it’s on iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone.