“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.

Originally appeared on Smartphone.Biz-News.com

Designed by HTC, myTouch 3G Slide will be coming in June from T-Mobile. It is powered by the Android 2.1 and features 3.4-inch HVGA touch- screen display with virtual keyboard as well as a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 5-megapixel camera and a music player with a pre-installed 8GB microSD memory card. It also comes with three completely new features:

Faves Gallery: presents up to 20 of user’s favorite people and the different ways to communicate with them – calls, texts, e-mail, instant messaging, social networking updates – in a dedicated application accessible through a soft button and a widget.

myModes: creates different themes with home screen apps, widgets and wallpapers (e.g. for drawing the line between work and home).

Genius Button: an easy-to- access button on the front of the phone allowing the use of voice commands to control the phone and it’s features (including making calls, composing and sending texts and e-mails, searching the Web or surroundings).

The display can be used in a vertical or horizontal position. When used in the vertical position, the user faces the upright screen from the front as a person would usually use a 2D monitor. However, when used in the horizontal position, the user overlooks the stereoscopic image formed by the display lying face-up, as one would overlook a relief model. Compared with the front view, the 3D images seen face-up from the bird’s eye view are more stereoscopic and realistic.

The tablet platform features a built–in camera for live video conferencing and multiple simultaneous viewing screens allowing patients to have real-time consultation with a physician while examining an x-ray image, referencing an online medical encyclopedia and order a prescription from a nearby pharmacy.

It comes with Marvell ARMADA 600 series 1GHz processor, 1080p videos, HD webcam, power-efficient Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM/GPS connectivity, 3D graphics capability and support for multiple software standards including full Adobe Flash, Android and Windows Mobile.

Designed by Haroon Baig, a communication designer,  the Twitwee Clock wirelessly connects to the internet and constantly checks for new status updates or search results from the Twitter API. New Tweets are displayed on the built-in display in near-realtime accompanied by the call of a mechanical cuckoo popping out of the clock. It can monitors any twitter stream or search, so it can inform the user about new tweets in his personal timeline. In exhibition context however it is configured to react on self-referenced tweets. If TwitweeClock is mentioned in any tweet, the tweet is displayed on the built in screen and the cuckoo mechanism is triggered.

The clock consists of a touch screen display with a controller board and a wifi dongle, that is distributed as an open source/ open hardware platform with a linux operating system by Chumby Industries. On the device there is a Flash Lite Player installed. A custom built widget for the Twitwee Clock connects to the Twitter API to receive new tweets.

LEICA V-LUX 20 has been announced. It’s a 12.1 megapixel camera with a 12x optical zoom lens and built-in GPS tagging (it is the first Leica to feature GPS tagging). It comes with the integrated LEICA DC-VARIO-ELMAR 4.1-49.2mm f/3.3-4.9 ASPH. zoom lens with a focal range of 25-300mm (35mm equivalent). New Leica features 1/2.33” CCD sensor, 3” TFT LCD, 460,800 pixels LCD display (100% field of view), mini HDMI output, 895 mAh battery (300 pictures according to CIPA standards) and  enables 720p movie recording at 60 fps. V-LUX 20 will be available from May for $699.

It also includes on-device sync with Microsoft Exchange server, with the ability to wirelessly synchronize contacts, calendar and enterprise email. The device receives its location information from multiple sources including satellite, network-based and terrestrial sources. Garmin navigation is included and preloaded on the A50. It is expected to be available in the first half of 2010. No word on the price yet.

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.

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