Apple launched an updated version of its iPhone, describing it as the world’s thinnest smartphone, and “the most precise, beautiful thing we’ve ever designed”.
Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, told the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco that iPhone 4 was “the biggest leap forward” since the original iPhone.
The new iPhone 4 is made from glass and stainless steel and features a five-megapixel front-facing camera with an LED flash. The screen on the new iPhone is four times the resolution of the display on the current iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4 can also record and edit high definition video.
Steve Jobs demonstrated the FaceTime video-calling feature of the iPhone 4 by calling Jony Ive, Apple’s chief designer.
The iPhone 4 will be available in the UK on June 24, in a choice of black or white. Apple has not yet revealed pricing and upgrade details.
“When you hold this in your hands, it’s unbelievable,” said Jobs. Details of the iPhone 4 leaked weeks ahead of today’s official announcement, after a prototype device was dropped in a bar, and found its way into the hands of Gizmodo, a gadget blog.
“Stop me if you’ve seen this before,” joked Jobs as he showed off the new device.
The iPhone 4 uses Apple’s own A4 processor, which Jobs said gave superior speed and performance, as well as a better battery that will allow users to go for longer between charges. There’s also a gyroscope built in to the device, which allows movement to be measured even more precisely, and could inspire a new generation of iPhone games, said Jobs.
Apple also gave more details about its new operating system for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, known as iOS4.
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Microsoft is set to launch its first line of Windows Phone 7 products next week and announce which carriers and manufacturers will be making and selling handsets based on its next mobile operating system.
It’s evident that AT and T is on board as one of the carriers as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and AT and T CEO Ralph de la Vega will be jointly hosting a press conference in New York Oct 11 to discuss the latest developments of Windows Phone 7, Wired magazine said.
T-Mobile is holding a separate press conference Oct 11 that is not part of the Microsoft conference, a Microsoft spokesperson said but declined to comment on whether T-Mobile would be among initial carrier partners offering Windows Phone 7.
Windows Phone 7 is Microsoft’s complete do-over of its mobile operating system previously dubbed Windows Mobile, the tech magazine said. Microsoft established an early lead on mobility with its older mobile operating system, but in recent years the company has suffered substantial losses in market share.
Windows Mobile hasn’t been upgraded substantially in several years, and more user-friendly competitors such as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android OS have taken market share away from Microsoft.
As a result, Microsoft scrapped the Windows Mobile project and redid the entire OS into a tile-based interface incorporating elements of the Zune media player and Xbox Live gaming, Wired said.
Microsoft is also tackling its competitors on the patent front. On Friday, the Redmond company sued Motorola over alleged patent infringement in its Android phones, covering features such as “synchronizing e-mail, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power.”
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told the Wall Street Journal Monday, that Android sales will generate licensing fees for Microsoft.
Though the company will announce details about Windows Phone 7 at the Oct 11 conference, multiple reports have claimed that the official shipping date of the first Windows Phone 7 devices is Nov 8, Wired.com said.
Pre-orders for Apple’s iPhone 4 in China have exceeded 200,000 units since the handsets went on sale on Saturday, China Unicom said, adding that it has stopped taking online orders because of strong demand.
About 60,000 buyers had received phones through China Unicom so far, the mobile operator said in a statement. By comparison, it took about six weeks to sell 100,000 iPhone 3GS handsets in 2009.
The iPhone 4 is being offered through China Unicom on a two-year mobile subscription contract and also through Apple retail stores in China, the world’s largest mobile phone market with more than 800 million subscribers.
China Unicom, which counts China Mobile Ltd and China Telecom Corp as its competitors, is the sole distributor of Apple’s iPhone in the country. Sales for previous generations of the iPhone were slow because of its high price.
Nokia unveiled an arsenal of smartphones today as it declared war on Apple’s iPhone after its most fundamental management shake-up in decades.
The Finnish firm is in turmoil, having lost two of its key executives in the last four days.
But newly-appointed chief executive Stephen Elop told the Nokiaworld conference in Docklands, London : ‘We have taken some knocks over the past few years, but we have transitioned Nokia for the future.
‘Symbian (Nokia’s phone software) is the most popular smartphone on the planet.’
Nokia still controls around 40 percent of the global smartphone market and sells about one in three of all phones, but has lost out in the market for the most expensive phone models.
And in a sideswipe at Apple over the problems it had with iPhone 4 Nokia’s Niklas Savander said: ‘We’re not going to apologise for the fact we’re not Apple or Google.
‘We aim to sell 50 million of these new handsets. They perform day in, day out – no matter how hold you hold them. Nokia is back.’
Apple has released their next big firmware update for the iPhone and iPod touch, excluding first generations, with loads of new features, including multitasking.
Although the UI hasn’t changed too much since the release of the first firmware, Apple has made huge improvements to the functionality and support for the mobile operating system, including copy and paste in 3.0 and now multitasking in 4.0. Apple even gave the new operating a new name, dubbed iOS 4.0, for support for iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad.
New Features
The iOS 4.0 will support multitasking, allowing for multiple applications to be run at the same time. The long awaited feature will be native to the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4 but will not be supported on the iPhone 3G. Users will be able to run applications in the background while using another app, receiving updates and notifications without having the application displayed.
Multitasking will also support fast switching, allowing users to see a list of applications already running in the background, and select which ones to launch. Users will be able to play music in the background while surfing the Internet.
Orange announced its pricing and tariffs for the eagerly awaited Apple iPhone 4 today.
Scheduled to be released on June 24, the iPhone 4 on Orange’s UK network will cost you a whopping £480 for the basic 16GB model on a Pay As You Go tariff. Orange also revealed its pay monthly tariffs. Orange customers opting for an 18 month contract at £35 per month will be able to purchase the new iPhone 4 16GB for £229. Those wishing to sign up to the more lengthly 24 month contracts will be able to purchase the device for £119 on a £35 a month contract.
Apple announced the new iPhone 4 last week at its annual WWDC 2010. The device will include the following:
* New design made of glass and steel (24% thinner than iPhone 3GS)
* Apple A4 processor
* 3.5″ Retina Display – 326 pixels per inch (960 x 640)
* Bigger battery (7 hr. 3G talk, 6 hr. 3G browsing, 10 hr. Wi-Fi browsing, 300 hr. standby)
* Front-facing camera
* 5 MP camera with LED flash and illuminated sensor (tap to focus)
* 720p HD video recording with built-in iMovie video editing (iMovie available in App Store for $4.99)
* microSIM
* Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, UMTS, GSM (quad-band)
* 2 microphones
* Available in 16 GB or 32 GB models
* 802.11n Wi-Fi
* 3-axis gyroscope (6-axis motion sensing for gaming)