New Delhi: Apple Chief Executive, Steven P Jobs, took the stage on Monday for a keynote at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference, held at the Moscone West convention center in San Francisco.
Jobs unveiled Apple's new offering - iPhone 4, and shared some news about apps on the iPad and iPhone.
Jobs opened Apple Inc's annual conference for for software developers on Monday by revealing the iPhone 4, which will cost $199 or $299 in the US with a two-year AT&T contract, depending on the capacity. The iPhone 3GS, which debuted last year, will still be available, for $99.
"It's the most precise thing we've ever made. There is glass on front and the backside and it has stainless steel around it. Its closest kin is a beautiful old Leica camera," said Steve Jobs.
The new iPhone is just 9.3mm thick, which is a quarter thinner than 3GS and is also the thinnest smartphone right now.
There's a front-facing camera, a receiver, a micro-SIM tray, a camera with LED flash at the back. On the bottom of the phone, there is a mic, 30-pin connector, and a speaker. On top, a second mic, second sleep/wake button, and noise-cancellation button.
There are three lines in the stainless steel structure of the phone. The slits in it are part of the engineering. It uses the stainless steel band as part of the antenna system.
The iPhone 4 is packed to gills on the inside, Jobs said. The phone uses a micro-SIM because it's smaller and Apple needed the space. The biggest thing in the new phone is the battery which is now a little bit bigger than before.
Since the battery is bigger and the phone is good at power management, one can expect around seven hours of talk time now, six hours of 3G browsing, ten hours of Wi-Fi browsing, and 300 hours of standby.
The next iPhone comes out June 24 and will have a higher-resolution screen, longer battery life and thinner design.
iPhone vs iPhone 4The iPhone 4 is about three-eighths of an inch thick; the previous iPhone was nearly half an inch. It is getting a camera on the front that could be used for videoconferencing, in addition to a five-megapixel camera and a flash on the back. It can shoot high-definition video, catching up to some other smart phones.
The display on the new iPhone remains 3.5 inches diagonally, but Jobs said it can show four times as many pixels -- the individual colored dots that make up an image -- as the previous screen.
The new phone will run the latest version of Apple's mobile software, now called iOS4, which Apple unveiled in April to offer such new features as the ability to operate more than one program at a time. Older iPhones will be able to get iOS4 as a download June 21.
New applications for the device will include the popular game Farmville and one from Netflix that lets people watch streaming video where they left off on a PC. (With inputs from agencies)