iPhone 4 on Verizon


by Steve Hildreth and Charles W. Moore

iPhone 4 was introduced in June 2010 and features a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, HD video recording, Apple’s A4 processor, a 3-axis gyro, and up to 40 percent longer talk time - in an all-new design of glass and stainless steel that Apple says is the thinnest smartphone in the world. iPhone 4 comes with iOS 4, the latest version of the iPhone operating system, and in some respects it's more exciting than the very cool phone itself. The new iOS includes over 100 new features and 1500 new APIs for developers. Multitasking, Folders, enhanced Mail, deeper Enterprise support and Apple’s new iAd mobile advertising platform are all now supported.

FaceTime lets you see your loved ones and friends anywhere there is Wi-Fi. Apple says using FaceTime is as easy as making a regular voice call, with no set-up required, and you can instantly switch to the rear camera to show others what you are seeing with just a tap.

Apple’s new 3.5 inch Retina display has 960 x 640 pixels - four times as many pixels as the iPhone 3GS and 78 percent of the pixels on an iPad. The resulting 326 pixels per inch is reportedly so dense that the human eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels when the phone is held at a normal distance, making text, images and video look sharper, smoother and more realistic than ever before on an electronic display.

iPhone 4 is also thinner than ever - 9.3 millimeters - with an all-new design and Apple cllaims build quality like no other mobile device. The front and back are made of aluminosilcate glass, chemically strengthened to be 30 times harder than plastic, more scratch resistant and more durable than ever. The front and back glass have an oil-resistant coating that helps keep it clean, and encircling iPhone 4 is a highly finished stainless steel band made of a custom alloy that is forged to be five times stronger than standard steel.

iPhone 4 features a new 5 megapixel autofocus camera with a 5x digital zoom, a backside illuminated sensor and built-in LED flash that allows you to take photos even in low light and dark environments. iPhone 4 also lets you record and edit i HD video and the tap to focus feature now works while recording video. You can use the iPhone 4‘s LED flash for both still photography and video recording. The new iMovie app for iPhone lets you combine movie clips, add dynamic transitions and themes and include photos and music, and users can buy it for just $4.99 through the App Store right on their phone.

iPhone 4 supports access to tens of thousands of games and entertainment apps on the App Store. Every iPhone 4 has a built-in 3-axis gyro that when combined with the accelerometer provides 6-axis motion sensing such as up and down, side to side, forward and backward and pitch and roll, making it perfect for gaming. Developers can access the gyro using the new CoreMotion API to make games and other apps that go well beyond what other mobile devices offer.

The new iOS 4 boasts over 100 new features, including Multitasking, Folders, enhanced Mail, deeper Enterprise support and Apple’s new iAd mobile advertising platform. With Multitasking, users can now instantly switch between any of their apps while preserving battery life. With Folders, users can easily organize their apps into collections by simply dragging one app on top of another. A folder is automatically created and named based on the category of apps selected. Users can change the name of any folder at any time. In addition, users can now customize their lock and home screens with an array of supplied wallpapers or with any of the photos on their phone.

Note the difference in the quality of images, taken first with HDR off, then with HDR on. Both images are looking into the sun on a hazy afternoon. Then compare these images with one taken using a 2010 iPod touch:

Click for full size image:

Photo taken with HDR off.

Photo taken with HDR on.


Compare the above photos with this one taken with a 2010 iPod touch. Note the stark difference in quality.

The video camera on the iPhone 4 and on the 2010 iPod touch are basically the same, both HD 720p up to 30 frames per second, 960x720:


Example of video and sound from 2010 iPod 4 on Verizon.


Example of video and sound from 2010 iPod touch.

The new iBooks app - a free download from the App Store - includes Apple’s new iBookstore, allowing users to browse, buy and read books on a mobile device. The iBooks app will sync your current place in a book, along with any bookmarks, highlights and notes you have created, between copies of the same book on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. iBooks users can also now read and store PDFs right in iBooks. There are now over 60,000 books available in the iBookstore, and users have downloaded over five million books in the first two months.

Apple says More than five billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store and more than 225,000 apps are available to consumers in 90 countries. Almost 100 million iPhone and iPod touch users around the world can choose from an incredible range of apps in 20 categories, including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel.

iPhone 4 delivers a claimed seven hours of talk time on 3G networks, up to 10 hours of web browsing on Wi-Fi and up to six hours on 3G, and up to 10 hours of video playback and up to 40 hours of audio playback.** iPhone 4 is powered by Apple’s new A4 processor that provides exceptional processor and graphic performance along with long battery life. iPhone 4 features a second microphone and advanced software to suppress unwanted background noise for improved call quality when in loud places. iPhone 4 also offers 802.11n Wi-Fi networking and adds quad-band HSUPA to provide 7.2Mbps downlink and 5.8Mbps uplink capability.

iPhone 4 comes in either black or white and will be available in the US for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 16GB model and $299 (US) for the 32GB model

Unboxing the iPhone 4 on Verizon:

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