Tag: a4

  • iPhone 4 is Here

    The iPhone 4 has been finally announced at the WWDC 2010. Steve Jobs himself revealed the new smartphone by Apple: the next iPhone is a 9.3mm thick (a quarter thinner than the iPhone 3GS; “the thinnest smartphone on the planet”, as Jobs said), has glass on front and back (“for better optical quality and scratch resistance”), and stainless steel around. It uses the stainless steel band as part of the antenna system.

    “It’s the most precise thing we’ve ever made,” Apple CEO said.

    iPhone 4 is powered by the A4 chip (designed ”in house”) and comes with two built-in cameras (one on the front and one on the back with an LED flash), two mics (one for a noise cancellation), micro-SIM (“we needed the space!"), 802.11n WiFi, GPS, compass, accelerometer, Quadband HSDPA/HSUPA, 7.2Mbps and up to 32GB of storage.

    The display is a huge innovation: based on new IPS technology ("quite a bit better than OLED"), the 3.5 inch, 960 x 640 Retina Display displays 326 pixels per inch (four times as many pixels as in any standard display) giving us really sharp text and pictures. The contrast ratio is 800:1 (4x better than the 3GS).

    Since the battery is now a bit bigger, its life has been improved. Apple says there is 7 hours of 3G talk, 6 hours of 3G browsing, 10 hours of WiFi browsing, 10 hours of video, 40 hours of music and 300 hours of standby.

    Another new piece of hardware is a gyroscope with pitch, roll, and yaw. It provides 6-axis motion sensing and features new CoreMotion APIs for extremely precise positioning. "We’re adding a 3 axis gyro, and we tied the gyro and accelerometer, compass, and gyro together for six axis. It’s perfect for gaming," Jobs said.

    Back camera has gone from 3 to 5 MP. Apple is using something that’s new to smarpthones — a back side illuminated sensor (giving more light to the camera). There’s a 5X digital zoom, tap to focus, and LED flash built in.

    Camera also does HD 720p (at 30 frames per second) video recording. It supports tap to focus and allows us to edit videos right on the phone. It also has 1-click sharing and the LED flash will stay on for the HD video recording. There is also iMovie coming to the iPhone for $4.99 (“if we approve it,” Jobs joked).

    iPhone 4 will also feature "FaceTime" video calling. It works between iPhone 4 devices, doesn’t require any setting-up and works anywhere there is WiFi. “It’s WIFI only in 2010. We need to work a little bit with our providers,” Jobs said. He added that Apple is going to make FaceTime and open industry standard.

    Apple has renamed the iPhone OS. Now it’s just iOS 4." Becuase it’s on iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone,” Apple CEO said. He also said that 100 millionth iOS device will be sold this month. "There is definitely a market for your applications," Jobs added.

    As announced earlier this year, new iOS 4 features include Multitasking for third party apps; Folders to better organize and access apps; improved Mail with a unified inbox, fast inbox switching and threaded messages; enhanced Enterprise support with better data protection, mobile device management and wireless app distribution.

    Apple has also added Bing to the iPhone for search (“Microsoft has done a great job on this,” Jobs said). Google will still be the default, but now we’ll have choice of Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

    Developers will get a Golden Master Candidate release of iOS4 today.

    Apple is also bringing iBooks to the iPhone with the iPhone 4. It has the same bookshelf as on the iPad, the same ability to read a PDF and comes with the same controls, highlighting, notes, and bookmarking. We can download the same book to all our devices at no extra charge (“Buy it on your iPad, download to your iPhone”)! In addition, iBooks will automatically and wirelessly sync our current place, bookmarks, and notes across all our devices.

    On July 1st Apple will also start providing iAds to all iOS 4 devices. “Why are we doing this? To help our developers earn money to continue to create free and low-cost apps for users,” Jobs said. According to him, they are trying to combine “the emotion of video with the interactivity of the Web."

    Apple sells and hosts the ads, so developers just have to tell them where to put the ads. And devs get paid 60 percent of the revenue. The company started selling ads eight weeks ago to: Nissan, Citi, Unilever, AT&T, Chanel, GE, Liberty Mutual, State Farm, Geico, Campbells, Sears, JCPenney, Target, Best Buy, DirecTV, TBS Network and Disney. "We’ve got advertisers committing to $60m," Jobs said.

    Price and availability
    iPhone 4 comes in two colors: black and white. 16GB model is for $199, and 32GB model for $299. Old 3GS is now $99

    Jobs said that AT&T is going to make an “incredibly generous upgrade offer: if your contract expires at any time in 2010, you can upgrade to the iPhone 4. You can get it up to six months early."

    The new iPhone will be on sale June 24th. Pre orders begin June 15th. Apple will ship iPhone 4 in US and four other countries on the first day (U.K., Germany, France, Japan). In July they’re shipping in 18 countries more. By September it will ship in 88 countries. "Our fastest roll out ever," Jobs said.

    iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G and iPod touch users can upgrade to iOS 4 for free starting June 21.

    Reed Hastings from Netflix, Mark Pincus from Zygna and Karthik Bala from Activision were also on stage announcing that Netflix, Farmville and new Guitar Hero will be coming to the iPhone.

  • The Apple iPad is Here

    “It is a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price,” said Steve Jobs unveiling Apple’s “latest creation” yesterday in San Francisco. Although we may doubt if the iPad really brings “magic” and “revolution” to us, we have to admit the prices are unexpectedly low. Yesterday, Apple’s stocks started to climb fast only when Jobs revealed how much we’ll have to spend on the device.

    All the rumors were saying the tablet will be not less than $999, and from this point of view the actual prices look really affordable. $499 for the basic version (16GB, no 3G) is something nobody expected; also $829 for the bloated 64GB, 3G version won’t scare anyone.

    So, what do you get for this price? iPad is 0.5 inch thick, 1.5 pound device with 9.7-inch, 1024 x 768, LED-backlit, responsive high-resolution Multi-Touch display that features IPS technology and has a wide 178 degree viewing angle.

    It’s powered by 1GHz “A4” chip designed by Apple (using their own P.A. Semi technology) and is claimed to have 10-hour battery life and a month of standby.

    It’ll come with a 30-pin dock connector, a microphone, a speaker, Bluetooth (2.1 + EDR), 802.11n WiFi and optional 3G, as well as an accelerometer and a compass.

    iPad comes in two versions—one with Wi-Fi and the other with both Wi-Fi and 3G. iPad includes the latest 802.11n Wi-Fi, and the 3G versions support speeds up to 7.2 Mbps on HSDPA networks.

    Every iPad is unlocked and comes with a GSM micro-SIM. Together with AT&T, Apple announced 3G pre-paid data plans for iPad: 250MB for $14.99 and an unlimited plan for $29.99 a month contract-free (with on-device activation and management, and a free use of AT&T WiFi hotspots). International deals will come in June.

    iPad syncs with iTunes just like the iPhone and iPod touch, using the standard Apple 30-pin to USB cable. The device features 12 Multi-Touch applications. Every app works in both portrait and landscape, automatically animating between views as the user rotates iPad in any direction.

    The operating system is based on iPhone OS, so the iPad can run all iPhone apps – either pixel-for-pixel in a window, or pixel-doubled fullscreen. Apple says they rewrote all of our apps for this display.

    Apple released a new SDK for iPad, allowing developers to target iPad’s specifics while developing new apps. The SDK includes a simulator that lets developers test and debug their iPad apps on a Mac, and also lets developers create Universal Applications that run on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

    Apple also announced the new iBooks app for iPad, which includes Apple’s new iBookstore that will feature books from “major and independent publishers”– five new big Apple’s partners: Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, Macmillian and Harper Collins.

    iPad has almost full-size soft keyboard but it also connects to the new iPad Keyboard Dock with a full-size traditional keyboard ($70). Additionally, there is a "camera connection kit" to allow to plug a camera in over USB or use an SD card ($30) and a leather case ($40).

    Unfortunately, iPad doesn’t support Adobe Flash and multitasking. There is also no camera and HDMI output.

    New Apple device will be available in late March worldwide for a suggested retail price of $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for 32GB and $699 for 64GB.

    The Wi-Fi + 3G models of iPad will be available in April in the US and selected countries for a suggested retail price of $629 for the 16GB model, $729 for the 32GB and $829 for the 64GB.

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