WWDC 10 Highlights: iPhone 4, iOS 4 and Safari 5

Most of the stage time and face time at WWDC 10 was dedicated to extolling the virtues of the iPhone 4 and iOS4. Rumours of a Magic trackpad, Macbook Air refresh, new OSX version, Mac Mini, and free MobileMe all came undone, even though they all seemed entirely reasonable and probable 24 hours ago.
The highlights: The iPhone 4 brings an improved high resolution display, video-conferencing over WiFi software known as Facetime, HD Video recording, and a three axis Gyro. The new OS, called iOS4 brings an implementation of multitasking that manages to conserve battery life, there are plenty of other features to be excited about, if you are the owner of an iPhone 3GS or iPod Touch 3G.

iPhone 4 – thinnest smartphone ever
It’s a couple of millimetres thinner than the Nexus One or the Milestone XT720, and has the highest resolution display ever built into a smartphone. The new design integrates antennas in the structure of the phone (Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS on the left and UMTS/GSM (on the right), and uses glass and stainless steel for strength.

Quite a bit of info on the new iPhone 4 has been leaked since April 19th, the 3.5-inch TFT capacitive screen is slightly smaller than some of the other Android superphones, but has higher pixel density – 960 x 640 pixels, that’s four times as many pixels as the iPhone 3GS and 78 percent of the pixels on an iPad. The new OS will rescales existing apps to take advantage of the high resolution screen, also known as Retina Display. Also confirmed: front-facing camera now for video calling, MicroSIM card to fit a bigger battery.

Apple claims 40 percent longer talk time on the iPhone 4, and is capable of 10 hours of video playback, 40 hours of audio playback, 10 hours on Wi-Fi and 6 hours on 3G.

iOS 4
The iPhone 4.0 software update, called iOS 4 was announced last month. It’s based on seven ‘tent poles’ that outline its features: 1) multitasking, 2) iAds 3) email enhancements, 4) social gaming features like Xbox Live 5) an e-book reader 6) new enterprise features, and 7) a concept called folders to group a large number of apps together.
For developers, IOS4 also brings over 1500 new APIs, developers can now access the calendar, gain full access to still and video camera data, photo library, quicklook, and carrier information. It also brings the ability to gift apps, support for Bluetooth keyboards, change the homescreen wallpaper, and search SMS messages.
The newest iPhone is not the only phone capable of Running iOS4 – iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3G users will get full functionality of the Apple’s iPhone OS 4.0 update on June 22nd.

iPhone 4 as a Wii controller, gaming platform
The iPhone 4 looks like it will shape up to be a fun device for gaming, the new OS brings a social gaming feature called Game Center, the phone equivalent of Xbox Live. Steve jobs demoed a brick-stacking game like Jenga, to demonstrate the 3-axis gyro that provides 6-axis motion sensing when combined with the accelerometer. Like the Nintendo Wii controller, it can sense when the phone’s orientation and motion, developers can access the gyro using the new CoreMotion API to make games and other apps. The new iPhone could probably sync with a desktop PC or Mac to provide the same level of interactivity and gameplay that the Nintendo Wii console can.

Key specs and features:
Camera: 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, 5x zoom
Battery: Up to 40 percent longer talk time
HD video recording – Export clips at 360p, 520p or 720p HD using iMovie for the Phone
CPU: Apple’s A4 processor
Connectivity: HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP,
Sensors: 3-axis gyro, Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor

Pricing and Availability
iPhone 4 will be available in the US, UK, France, Germany and Japan on June 24. Buyers in the US will have to pay $199 for the iPhone 4 in the US with a two year contract, the iPhone 3GS is now $99, the iPhone 3G has been retired. The no-committment price for the iPhone 4 is $599 and $699 for the 16 and 32 GB version. the iPhone 4 will be launched in 88 countries by the next quarter, we can expect it to be available in India before September 2010.

Safari 5
Available for Mac and Windows users, Safari 5 brings a 30 percent performance improvement over Safari 4, improved developer tools to create secure Safari Extensions, the ability to choose Google, Yahoo! or Bing for default search, and a dozen new HTML5 technologies that allow web developers to create rich, dynamic websites.

The cool new feature is Safari Reader, which makes it easy to read single and multipage articles on the web by presenting them in a new, scrollable view.

Via: Slashgear, Engadget, Geekshui

WWDC 10 Highlights: iPhone 4, iOS 4 and Safari 5

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WWDC 10 Highlights: iPhone 4, iOS 4 and Safari 5

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