You already know the new iPhone from every angle, inside and out. Today, Steve Jobs re-revealed it, telling us about the remaining details. Here’s the exhaustive guide to all the features of the new iPhone 4.
Hardware technical features
The brains
It has an Apple A4 chip inside, just like the iPad. Inside the A4 there are a few interconnected chips: A Cortex-A8 main processor unit—the main brains—paired with a PowerVR SGX 535—which handles the high definition graphics of the new iPhone. These are directly connected with each other and two low-power 128MB DDR SDRAM chips. Since all these components are in the same chip, they can process things faster while consuming less battery than before.
The A4 also consumes less power because its sub-components can be switched on and off when they are not needed, shaving watts whenever it’s possible.
Battery life
The battery is 16% bigger than the current one. Coupled with the A4 processor and new display, it results in a longer battery life: Apple claims 40% more talk time. Here are their figures:
• Talk over 3G: 7 hours.
• Browsing over 3G: 6 hours.
• Browsing over Wi-Fi: 10 hours.
• Video: 10 hours.
• Music: 40 hours.
• Stand-by: 300 hours.
The display
The 3.5-inch screen has a resolution of 960 × 640 pixels. Apple calls is the Retina Display, and it has four times as many pixels as the current iPhone 3GS’ display. The screen has 326 pixel per inch resolution, a higher definition than your typical magazine, a quality that shows in the screenshot.
Apple claims that this IPS-based display—the same technology as used in the iPad—also has 800-to-1 contrast ratio which is four times better than the 3GS, with a higher viewing angle.
The apps will take automatic advantage of the increased relative resolution, which mean they will be a lot sharper for text, 3D graphics, and vectorial art. However, developers will need to include higher resolution bitmap images to make the app look perfect.
The main camera
The new iPhone has a bigger sensor for the main camera, with bigger lenses. This one is capable of capturing high definition video at 720p 30 frames per second. The sensor maintains the same 5 megapixel count, but it increases the size of the sensor, so it has a higher ISO. That means that you would be able to take better photos and video in low light conditions.
The camera also has a LED-based flash, which works both for photographs and video.
The video conferencing camera
In the front, there’s a video conference camera, with standard VGA resolution. This camera will be used with third-party applications, as well as Apple’s own video conference solution.
Gyroscope
The new iPhone 4 has a gyroscope built-in. This means that it can track movement with a very high precision, much higher than the built-in accelerometers in the previous iPhones. It’s 3-axis, so it’s capable of detecting pitch, roll, and yaw. Couple with the accelerometer, you have 6-axis motion sensing.
Other
• Like the iPad 3GS, the new iPhone uses the new micro-SIM standard.
• It has an additional microphone on the top used for noise cancelation.
Design
The hardware design hasn’t changed from the one we already knew about. It uses the same materials as the prototype: Black glass and stainless steel rim. It fits with the rest of the Apple product line, from the hard edges to the Dieter-Ramish utilitarianism of the iMac and the iPad.
The size is smaller than the previous generation: 34% thinner than the iPhone 3GS. Although it is 3 grams heavier. According to Apple, it’s the thinnest smartphone ever. It has split buttons for volume, unlike the current iPhone 3GS, all made in stainless steel.
The stainless steel rim
The stainless steel rim gives the structure to the iPhone, and acts as part of the antenna for 3G and Wi-Fi. In theory, this will greatly increase the reception abilities of the new iPhone 4.
New software features – iOS4
The new iPhone 4 comes with iOS 4, a new moniker for the iPhone OS. The biggest new feature is, of course, selective multi-tasking, Apple’s way to multitask some application features without consuming too many resources and battery power.
iMovie for iPhone
The new iPhone 4 will be able to use a new editing software from Apple: iMovie for iPhone. It comes with 1,500 new features.
The new iMovie for iPhone works on high definition 720p right. You can use it to cut the video clips, add automatic Ken Burns effects for still images and a music soundtrack taken from your iPhone’s tunes. After you are done with your movie, you can export it to 360p, 520p, and 720p.
It’s a separate application, however, it doesn’t come built-in with the iPhone 4.
Price and availability
Not confirmed yet: The Phone 4 will be available on June 24, and will cost $149 and $199 for 16 and 32GB.
Images courtesy of GDGT
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