Apple revealed the we-already-knew-about-it iPhone4 at their annual developer conference in California this morning.
It has basically everything we had already heard about the phone that Gizmodo famously (and allegedly feloniously) revealed:
• A4 chip (that means it fast as balls)
• Front-facing camera
• Flash (no, not that one, the kind for lighting up photos.)
• 5 megapixel camera, backside illuminated sensor, etc.
• HD video recording (720p at 30fps), with tap-to-focus in video
• iMovie for iPhone, a mini editing studio app, for $4.99
• Super high-resolution display (326 pixels per inch). They’re calling this the “Retina Display” which is disappointing. What are they going to call their actual retina display when that comes out?
• Beefier battery – up to 7 hours of 3G talk time.
• Gyroscope added to the array of motion sensors. This will be good for games. Or spinning around. Or something.
• “Face Time” which is their two-way video chatting thing. It’ll work from iPhone 4 to other iPhone 4s, and on WiFi only, at least for the rest of 2010.
What’s all this gonna cost you? $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB. The 3GS will still be hanging around, and cost $99. AT&T is also extending upgrade pricing to anyone whose contract would end anytime in 2010.
When? June 24. Someone will probably want to get me one of these to celebrate the birth of my child, which is projected to be that same week. Right? Right? Mom?
Anyway… my take? These are going to sell ridiculously well. The prices are extremely aggressive, the speed and display resolution will impress people instantly, and the video chatting is one of those “wow” features that few people will use much but will be great for marketing. There are a lot of impressive phones on the market these days, some with many of the same features (or more), but that won’t matter. If Apple keeps upping their technology at this rate, it’s going to be hard for anyone to catch up. Android is gaining ground, and will be a solid competitor for a long time, but this phone will be another boost for Apple for the near future anyway.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Mercury Food Editor Patrick Alan Coleman still uses a Zune Android, and will undoubtedly be here shortly to loudly try to convince himself it is still superior. GOOD LUCK.]
Flash.
I have a question for the phone manufacurers. Since most of the new phones have some sort of GPS built in, or some other way of tracking the phone, why isn’t the text capability dis-abled when the phone is in motion, like in a car. There are a lot of vehicle accidents caused by drivers texting and driving at the same time. Disabling the text send feature while the vehicle is in motion would put a stop to much of this. Just wonderin…
@ujfoyt: So jagoff iphone users can still inadvertently run over people OR advertently run people over with a convenient excuse.
or because millions of people text while in moving vehicles without being the actual driver.
@ujfoyt: So should passengers not be able to use them either? What about people on a bus? What about kids in the back seat?
btw, the Droid Incredible I just received via FedEx today has an excellent speech to text feature built-in to anywhere there’s a keyboard. Eliminates that problem. I even tested it with “Portland Mercury”, though it kept coming up “Willamette Week is better”. Not my fault. Probably knows you guys are iPhone users.
@Distro Viking: It was nice meeting you at the party.
@ujfoyt: because that’s a terrible idea. I can think of at least 5 reasons why that would cause all sorts of problems.
Android = still superior
At release, the new IPhone already falls short of the current smart phone king of the hill, the HTC Evo. There is a bit of a “wow” factor to that.
The walled garden internet (and hardware and software) on Apple mobile devices will probably cripple Apple in the long run like it crippled AOL. Maybe Jobs should have waited another year and developed something really unique. On the other hand, they need to at least stay competitive. Still, for one company producing one new phone model per year, they are raking in a lot of money.