What You Need To Know About The New Apple iPhone iOS4

Because MacRumors did such a great job with their live feed of this morning's WWDC Keynote event, I can give you the upshot of the new iPhone iOS4 features, specs, price and availability as well as photos of the slideshow presentation.



I've dumbed it down to some fundamental points and left out much of the developer speak. I hope most of this is clear enough for the layman.

General info:
• iPhone OS is now iOS 4
• 100 new user features
• iPhone 4 powered by Apple A4 chip.

• 32GB of storage, quadband HSDPA/HSUPA
• iOS4 has multitasking, folders, retina display integration, enhancements to mail, camera and photo apps, much deeper enterprise integration and tons of new features
• search engine now includes Bing, Google is still default

• Can view all inboxes for mail:



Battery Charge:

• Bigger battery plus A4 processor, 40% more talk time.
• 7 hours talk time.
• 6 hours of 3G browsing,
• 10 hours of WiFi browsing,
• 10 hours of video.
• 40 hours of music.
• 300 hours of standby



External Design:

• 9.3mm thick, 24% thinner than current iPhone.
• Glass on front and rear with stainless steel running around the side.
• comes in white or black
• external buttons, volume up and down, mute, front facing camera. Micro-sim tray, Camera with LED flash on back.

• Top has headphone jack, second mic for noise cancellation and sleep/wake button.
• Bottom has mic, 30 pin connector, and speaker.
• 3.5" display, same size, 960x640.

Display:

• 326 ppi. 800:1 contrast ratio also 4x better than 3GS. Uses IPS technology for superb color and wide viewing angle.
• Retina Display has 78% of the pixels of an iPad right in the palm of your hand.

• Apps automatically run full size but look even better because iPhone OS automatically renders text and controls in higher resolution.
• Text is sharper


Gyroscope:
• iPhone 4 has a Gyroscope.

• Gyro makes rotation much better, smoother, faster.
• Gyro joins 4 other sensors, accelerometer, compass, proximity and ambient light sensors.


Camera:

• 5 megapixel camera
• Backside illuminated sensor.

• 5x digital zoom in camera app and tap to focus with LED flash.

• Camera records HD video

• Now has iMovie for iPhone.

• Record, edit, and share HD video right on your phone.

• LED flash can stay on during video recording
• One-click sharing.
• Can export to 360p, 520p, and 720p.
• Tap to focus video with built-in video editing. 720p at 30fps.

Organization/ Folders:
• Folders can be renamed and go in the dock.
• Automatically names folder based on category of apps inside.

Stores/Downloads:
• Three stores on the iPhone: iTunes, iBooks, and App Store.



iAds:

• iAds for one simple reason: To help developers make free and low-cost apps for users.

•Animated just like a flash ad.
•When you tap on it, it fills the screen or you can hit a button in the top left to close the ad.

Face Time (Video calling):


• iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 video calling, anywhere there is WiFi (Apple calls this "FaceTime".)
• Apple will ship tens of millions of FaceTime devices this year so there's going to be a lot of people to talk to and devices that work.
• FaceTime WiFi only in 2010, quote "Need to work a little bit with the cellular providers."
• Portrait and landscape mode is supported.

• Both front and rear camera can be used, switching is easy, All you have to do is make a phone call. No set up required.

Cost and availability:



• iPhone 4 in 88 countries by end of September.
• Canada not in initial batch of countries that will get iPhone 4 on launch.
• iPhone 3GS will be $99.
• On sale June 24th.
• Pre-orders begin June 15th
• Up to 6 months of early eligibility for an iPhone
• AT&T is making an "incredibly generous" upgrade offer.
• Price with 2 year contract: $199 for 16GB model, $299 for 32GB model.

• iOS4 upgrades for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G (with not all features supported), and iPod touch (again with not all features and no first generation) for free on June 21st.

• colored cases available for 29$


Worldwide release info - July for following countries:



Apple's video:


Learn more

UPDATE: iphone 2.0 rumors: look, apps, release date

Be sure to see the latest ways to pimp that new iphone here.

Updated pics, firmware and more rumors:

*A round up of spy pics on the web. Please note rumors say these pics are most likely fake or doctored:









* another update as of June 6th: Firmware update (thanks to Ryan Block) from Engadget:

All the dirty details:

• Infineon PMB6952 / S-GOLD3 six-band UMTS / HSDPA transceiver (as we'd heard)
  
• Murata LMRX3JCA-479 tri-band amplifier (we're assuming for the 3G)
  
• Sony SP9T antenna switch for GSM / UMTS dual mode
• ARM 1176JZF-S - Main CPU (same as in 1st gen iPhone)
• Skyworks 77427 chip - UMTS / HSDPA tx 1900MHz, rx 2100MHz
• Skyworks 77414 chip - UMTS / HSDPA 1900MHz
• Skyworks 77413 chip - UMTS / HSDPA 850MHz
• Internal build model number: n82ap (1st gen iPhone was model m68ap)
• UMTS Power Saving option - on or off
• Hooks for Global Locate Library (GLL), software that handles A-GPS related commands for the host processor

* Update as of june 1st: New iphone to be 22% thinner:



iPhone Rumors Gone Wild:
Plastic Case Photos, UMTS 'Test' In Austria And Chinese Handwriting Recognition

The difference between iPhones one and two? Speculation. Steve Jobs showed off the original iPhone six months before it shipped. This isn't Apple's usual modus operandi. Usually the company's products are top secret until launch day.

The break with protocol was ostensibly to stop the design being leaked by the FCC approval process (although why this hasn't happened for iPhone 2.0 is still a mystery), but had the side effect of quelling the inevitable rumor-hysteria that would otherwise have overshadowed the launch. Sure, the free publicity would have been great, but as groundbreaking as the iPhone was, it couldn't have lived up to a device dreamed up by bloggers and fanboys.

The Second Coming is different, and shows us exactly what would have happened the first time around if Apple had gone all Secret Squirrel on us. The speculation is going wild. Here is a roundup of what the web says just this week (and we've only reached Tuesday). A lot of it looks like junk, but who knows?

Plastic Case

The picture above comes from Chinese website, WeiPhone. In it we see the much rumored plastic case. At first look, I called "fake", and it might well be. But remember the leaked pictures of the Fat Nano? We commented that it looked ugly, but once we'd seen it, we'd love it. So, while this plastic case might be a mockup, it could equally be a new, uglier incarnation of the iPhone.

And it makes sense for a few reasons. Plastic is lighter and shows less scratches. It also means that the iPhone could be offered in multiple colors (aluminum would do that, too, but the current rear plate would look a little odd). The projection of the bottom looks fine, although those four surrounding holes look like the iPod remote sockets of old. Extra accessory ports? We'll see, but the plastic case seems to be the most consistently reported rumor, with our Bryan Gardiner kicking things off for Gadget Lab back on April 5th. Just one thing calls this into doubt: Apple has been moving away from plastic in a drive to make its products more recyclable (a new MacBook could be fashioned from aluminum, for example).

Specs

You can't ramp up production for a huge product launch without some leaks, even if you're Apple. One such leak is that there is some kind of sensor next to the earpiece. ILounge speculates that this might be a second camera to allow video calls, something we've thought about here on the lab.

To be honest, though, apart from a new camera and a slightly different case, there's not much more to be done to the iPhone on the outside. All the action is on the screen, and changing that needs only a software update, not the retooling of an entire assembly line. Today's iPhone 2.0 software rumor is all about handwriting recognition, something that has been clunkily implemented already by a third party developer. Version 2.0 is said to include Chinese character recognition as well as input for western characters.

These screenshots, from Chinese site Wretch.cc, show the input screen and preferences. The shots look terrible, but if this is indeed beta software we shouldn't take too much from the looks. The worrying part, though, is the name "Kenneth" where the carrier name should be. There are hacks to do this to the phone, but unless Apple is being paranoid and wants to discredit leaked photos (a possibility, certainly) then these pics have the smell of fakery about them. Even so, China is a potential market of two billion, so we won't discount some kind of special support.

UMTS iPhone in Austria

Lastly come the carrier leaks. According to Der Standard, T-Mobile made an official announcement at a press conference in Vienna, saying that a UMTS iPhone will be coming to Austria "soon". Apparently, Austria will be the "testing ground" for the 3G models. Yes, models, plural:

[I]t is also assumed that up to three new models for different target groups on the market.

This last comes from a source inside chip maker Infineon. Der Standard also reports that the 3G iPhone will sell unlocked, and contrary to widespread speculation, will actually be more expensive. Taken with the reports that AT&T will be subsidizing the new handset to the tune of $200, this makes a certain kind of sense. Instead of the subsidy making the iPhone cheaper, it could just be there to keep it at the same price if you sign up for a contract.

The only reality here is that of confusion. Trying to keep up with the rumors and make some kind of sense of them is a full time job (actually, my full time job). I really can't wait for the WWDC conference, the expected launch-pad of iPhone 2.0, after which we can take a brief vacation before the iPhone 3.0 rumors begin.

By Charlie Sorrel for Wired

And, another rumor about actual release date:
Last year around this time speculation was rampant about the launch of the iphone. And it was the fact that AT&T was canceling vacations between June 15th to July 15th that clued the industry in to an approximate time for the launch. It looks like we might be getting the same clue this year.

According to reports, just as last year, AT&T is asking for vacations to be rescheduled, and has said that no other vacations will be approved for the period deemed to be a "heavy selling period," June 15 to July 12.

Now, some are pointing at June 29th, which would be the one year anniversary of the iPhone launch, as the obvious day - but that happens to be a Sunday, so that's probably not likely.

Still, the timing is actually perfect, with WWDC this year running from June 9 - 13.