Well it’s finally here and the wait is over. Yesterday (6/7/10) Apple unveiled its latest revision to its popular iPhone line, calling it the iPhone 4. According to Apple, “This changes everything. Again.” It certainly does. The new iPhone is packed with many new features, but I’ll just list the most important ones here.
Design
The new iPhone has been completely redesigned into a thinner form factor that is now only .37in thick. According to Apple its now the thinnest smartphone on the market. Additionally, Apple swapped out the curves of the iPhone 3G for a flat rectangle with rounded corners. The edges also now have two seams, a result of design restrictions that required Apple to ingeniously use the stainless steel edges as the antennas for its many radios. The phone still has the same buttons as previous models, although the volume rocker has now been split into two separate buttons. The iPhone 4 can be purchased in either white or black with either 16GB or 32GB of memory. Apple also decreased the size of its internal components to allow for a larger battery that now gives the phone 7 hours of talktime and 20 hours of video playback.
Screen
The new iPhone now comes standard with “Retina Display,” a 960-by-640 LED LCD display with an amazing 326 dpi. Because the human eye can only sense a maximum of 300 dpi from 12 inches away, the screen gives incredibly crisp images that are unmatched in the smartphone world.
Internal Components
Apple made several new changes inside the iPhone this time to make it even better. The iPhone boasts Apple’s new A4 custom processor (also found in the iPad) to make the iPhone incredibly fast at working complex tasks including multitasking. Additionally, Apple added a gyroscope to the iPhone’s line of sensors to give it even better spatial precision to enhance the gaming functionality of the phone. With the gyroscope the iPhone is capable of sensing user acceleration, angular velocity, and rotation rate. On the outside, the iPhone now has two microphones, one at the bottom for normal voice recording and the other at the top for noise cancellation. With new software built into the phone, the new top microphone should help to greatly reduce background noise in calls and voice recording.
Cameras
Two cameras! There is now a camera on both the front and the back of the phone, one for photos and video and the other for video calling. The rear camera is now a 5 megapixel camera with an LED flash capable of recording 720p HD video that can be edited right from the phone with the new iMovie app. The front facing camera is a VGA camera that can be used for Apple’s new video calling feature, FaceTime. With FaceTime, iPhone 4 users can call any other user’s number and videochat with them right from the phone. The feature does require the user to be on a WiFi network, but hopefully the cell networks will soon allow it over 3G. FactTime requires no setup and makes it easy to share special moments with anyone around the world.