Steve Jobs opened the WWDC 2010 conference today with some major announcements that had the crowd of Apple fans going wild while the internet buzzed with excited chatter.
Jobs teased conference attendees with demonstrations of Netflix and Farmville apps for iPhone that will be available in the App Store this Summer. This was followed by a live demonstration of the new Guitar Hero iPhone app that is actually available in the App Store now. But there's no doubt that the star of Jobs' keynote presentation was the eagerly anticipated iPhone 4.
The iPhone 4 has several new features that are sure to make the handset a hot tech commodity this Summer:
- The display is a "retina display" which has 326 pixels per inch. As Job's stated during the announcement, "There's NEVER been a display like this in a phone." The retina display has a resolution 2 times that of the current iPhones with 4 times more pixel density.
- There will be two cameras built-in to the iPhone 4, one front facing camera and a camera with LED flash on the back of the handset. The back camera is 5MP with 5X digital zoom and an illumination sensor. The camera will also be capable of recording HD video, 720p at 30fps, and the LED flash will stay lit during recording to illuminate videos.
- Both cameras will also support video chat on the iPhone 4 through a new app called Face Time. Jobs did a video chat demonstration with a friend during the keynote and mused that he used to dream about video calling while watching Star Trek as a kid.
- An A4 processor chip designed by Apple engineers and improved power performance. Jobs stated that the iPhone 4 improved the battery by as much as 40% with 7 hours of talk time and 6 hours of browsing time on a 3G network, 10 hours of browsing time via WiFi, 10 hours of video playback, and up to 300 hours of standby time.
- The case of the iPhone has been re-engineered with a stainless steel band around the outside of the phone which will act as a more powerful antenna to improve reception.
- The handset will ship with an updated operating system now known as iOS.
- Jobs demonstrated the built-in 3-axis gyroscope by playing a quick game of Jenga for the audience.
- iMovie for iPhone video editing app will be available for $4.99, with geolocation of video automatically pulled into themes.
- iBooks for the iPhone will automatically sync notes & books wirelessly across multiple devices,
- Bing has been added as a third internet search option in iOS.
In addition, Jobs announced iAds advertising with confirmed partners Nissan, Unilever, AT&T, Citi, Chanel, GE, Liberty Mutual, State Farm, Geico, Campbell, Sears, JC Penny, Target, Best Buy, Direct TV, TBS, and Disney. The partners are already reported to have committed $60 million in ad revenue that Jobs says will, "help our developers earn money so they can continue building apps."
The iPhone 4 with iOS will launch in the US and Canada on June 24th with $199 16GB and $299 32GB models. Both models will be available in black or white. It will be available in over 80 countries around the world by the end of September.
The iOS 4 upgrade will be available for free on existing iPhones and the iTouch (except first generation), on June 24th. There was no word on an iOS 4 launch date for the iPad.
