Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Apple iPhone 4 Dazzles


Apple iPhone 4 could hardly be called a surprise. The cat was out of the bag after the San Mateo County Sheriff obtained a warrant and searched Gizmodo's editor Jason Chen's Fremont, Calif., home for the missing (stolen?) iPhone had been revealed to the world. Chen paid $5000 for the iPhone to Brian Hogan, who did not own it but said he obtained it at a Redwood, California bar where a Apple engineer Gray Powell had been separated from it. What a drama!

In his announcement from the stage of WWDC 2010 in San Francisco, Steve Jobs seconds before the new slimmer phone appeared on the screen joked, "Some of you might have seen this..." to a thunderous laugh in the audience. Yet, Apple did not fail to dazzle and wow not only this audience of programmers and engineers dedicated to Apple's success but to the throngs of those listening and watching around the world. Some in the media have called Facetime the iPhone 4 "killer app" and while that might just still need to be proven, it added a sexiness and allure that simple software upgrades cannot.

Let do a rundown list of the most important changes to the iPhone with 4:

Hardware upgrades:

Front and back camera (5 megapixel)

LED Flash

720P HD Video 30 fps

up to 40% longer battery life (talk time)

24% thinner

Retina display (326 pixels per inch) 960 x 640 res

Software upgrades:

FaceTime videoconferencing application (uses both front and back camera)
iMovie for iPhone

iBooks for iPhone

iOS 4 has multi-tasking

iOS 4 allows you to organize the desktop icons into folders

While much of these hardware and software had been speculated about in the press, looking at the new glass and aluminum iPhone and seeing the added features of front and rear 5 megapixel camera and newly labeled Facetime application made it a bold new iPhone that perks the interests of users everywhere. A larger battery inside a solid 24% smaller glass and aluminum box makes it a substantially different feeling object in the hand.

Perhaps more significantly, the new iPhone has a new glass display with 320 pixels per inch that renders all on its screen more beautiful, clean, and clear from photos to video to text. Coupled with the new 5 megapixel still and 720 HD video cameras this phone becomes more and more serious as a video recording and still picture camera.