Apple announced the iPhone 4 in June 6th 2010, and what is an amazing announcement. It is way beyond my expectation. I was hoping to get a high resolution screen, but Apple delivered a stunning super high resolution retina display which is the highest resolution ever on a phone of its time.
The retina display gives 4 times the number of pixels of the iPhone 3GS in the same 3.5" diagonal display. That is 326 Pixels per inch. It will feel like you are looking at a magazine or text printed on a piece of paper.
Great still picture camera:
The iPhone 4 is built in 5 mega pixel camera with backside illumination sensor that give impressive pictures quality at low light. This sensor promises to deliver better quality pictures than higher mega pixels cameras at low light.
This iPhone is also equipped with an LED flash to add more light when needed. The results are superb picture quality from the built in iPhone camera.
Click here to visit the Apple site to learn more about the iPhone camera. Then scroll all the way to the bottom to see some pictures taken with the iPhone 4 camera. Click on the picture to enlarge it, and then click inside the picture to zoom in to see the details. Hold the mouse and move the picture left, right, up and down to scroll around the picture.
High Definition video recording:
The 5 mega pixel camera can also record HD video at 720P and 30 frame per second which is simply impressive from a cell phone. There is no need to carry multiple devices any more. It is going to be the iPhone 4 and that is it.
With the backside illumination sensor, you will get more light to the picture which will allow better video quality at low light. Visit the Apple HD video recording page for more details.
Edit HD video with iMovie for iPhone:
After you have captured your stunning 720P HD video, you can use iMovie for iPhone to edit those videos just like the real iMovie on the Mac. You can add titles, take a video in between, create transitions and make great video clips right on your iPhone 4.
Front facing camera:
This is one of the coolest iPhone4 features with lots of potential from both the App store and Cydia. With the front facing camera you can take portrait pictures and videos of yourself. Though, the main purpose of this front camera is really video calling with FaceTime.
FaceTime allows you to video chat with your friends and buddies without installing any other application. It works by simply dialing a phone number and start a video call right while you are talking to your party. It is that simple.
You have to have wifi in order to do this though, and currently FaceTime only works on iPhone 4's which makes this iPhone feature a little limited. However, Apple will be releasing this application as an Open Source standard, therefore, you could possibly see FaceTime app on Android and other front camera phones.
I expect this feature to be available to Skype and Fring very soon. Also, with some iPhone hacks like 3GUnrestrictor, it is possible to make video calls over the 3G network and not only wifi.
Several iPhone Hacks are already available in Cydia that allows the front facing camera to be used with other applications, cell phones, and computers with web cams. Therefore, it is not necessary for your party to own an iPhone 4 to video chat with you. You have to jailbreak your iPhone4 of course in order to do any of those iPhone system tricks.
You can also switch between the front and rear camera at any time. For example, while you are in a video call, you can simply switch to the rear camera and show your party what you see instead of showing your self.
Gyroscope:
Currently, the iPhone has a digital compass and an accelerometer which gives three axis rotation. A Gyroscope gives an additional axis of rotation and add more accuracy to the other axis.
For example, you can hold the iPhone and turn around your self, the picture on the iPhone will rotate. Click the video below to watch the Gyroscope in action.
801.11n Wifi support:
I have been waiting for this wifi speed for a long time on a hand held device. This simply means faster internet browsing in places with 11N routers which means faster iPhone network capabilities.
No hand held I have seen has 11n support so far. They all support 11b/g just like the iPhone 3G/3GS. The main reason has been that 11n consumes more battery life than 11b/g and therefore is not suitable for handheld devices. However, with the improved power consumption of the iPhone A4 processor, and the bigger battery of the iPhone 4, it was possible to adopt 11N connectivity.
iOS 4 multitasking and the iPhone OS 4 task switcher have been the most desired iPhone4 features for a long time. Not only you can now run multiple iPhone applications at the same time, but you can also quickly switch between them without going to the home screen first.
iPhone applications must be updated by the developer first in order to take advantage of the iOS 4 multitasking capabilities. For example, you will be able to listen to internet radio applications in the back ground, or listen to voice notification from your favorite iPhone GPS application while reading your mobile mail, browsing the internet with iPhone Safari or typing a note with iPhone Notes.
Folders:
This is one of the most exciting iOS 4 features and is one that should have existed from the beginning. You know how annoying it is to look for an iPhone icon and swapping your home screens left and right to look for an iPhone application specially when you have lots of apps.
Folders is a feature that finally allows you to categorize and organize your apps. By simply dragging and dropping one app on top of another, a folder is created and named automatically based on the App Store category it was downloaded from. Then you can drag more apps to that new folder, and of course you can change the name of the folder if you want.
iPhone-4 Problems:
With about 1.7 million iPhone 4 sold in the first 3 days, you could imagine the intense sale and production of this new iPhone. There must be some issues with any successful launch of any new product. At least because of the volume of sale, and because there are people that like to put down any successful new product specially when it is from Apple. If there is nothing at all, someone will find something.
iPhone4 Antenna Issue:
The iPhone4 antenna issue was the biggest at the launch of the iPhone 4. Many tried to view it as a bad design, but it is in fact something that existed not only in both previous iPhone 3G and 3GS, but also in many other cell phones from Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung.
It was more obvious on the new iPhone just because of lack of iPhone cases for the 4 at launch. The problem wasn't recognized with the launch of the iPhone 3GS because iPhone cases for the 3GS already existed, so most people automatically had cases when they bought their new phone.
Therefore, people were using the iPhone 4 without a case, and they started to notice the iPhone antenna issue.
I didn't notice I even had the problem on my iPhone 3GS until I started some tests to find out that it did. The solution is very simple and usually people do it anyway. You just have to have a case to hide the exposed iPhone antenna.
No iPhone-4 Jailbreak yet:
It is pretty annoying to use a powerful device like the forth generation iPhone, and not use it to its full. This won't happen until the long awaited iPhone4 jailbreak comes out.
Update1:
You can now Jailbreakyour new iPhonewith the easiest method ever in the iPhone history. The jailbreak is out for iOS 4.0 and iOS 4.0.1. You simply go to a website called www.jailbreakme.com from your iPhone and slide your finger to jailbreak it. This is all done solely on your iPhone without the need to connect to an external computer.
