higher-resolution display and comes with video chat — may have lacked a
single “Wow!” moment. But coupled with the launch of a new operating
system and mobile advertising service, the message to competitors was
unambiguous: Catch us if you can.
The stainless-steel-and-glass mobile device is
nearly 25 percent thinner than its predecessor and runs on the
company’s in-house A4 chip, the speedy and power-sipping processor at
the heart of the iPad. It gives the iPhone 4 longer battery life,
including 40 percent more talk time.
Talk time will increase from five hours to seven
hours per charge, Jobs said. Additionally, the iPhone 4 is promised to
have six hours of browsing across the 3G network, 10 hours of browsing
over a Wi-Fi network, 40 hours of music playing, 10 hours of video play
back and 300 hours on standby before the device needs to be plugged in
for a new charge.
Jobs, who has declared the end of the era of the
personal computer that he helped pioneer, presented the iPhone as part
of a new computing platform running on the iPhone operating system,
iOS, to thousands of independent software writers attending Apple’s
annual
Apple, he told the packed auditorium, is close to
selling its 100 millionth device using the iOS operating system, which
is installed in the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. He said the
company last week crossed the 5 billion app download line — a milestone
that means money in their pockets. Jobs was particularly delighted to
announce the company has paid out more than
“No one even comes close to us,” the Apple co-founder said.
The iPhone 4 shows that Apple, which redefined the smart-phone industry, intends to maintain its momentum.
“It blows the competition away,” said Bart Decrem,
CEO of Tapulous, a game developer. “We got the iPad, iOS and now we
have the iPhone 4 and iAds. The overall innovation is remarkable.”
Apple’s engineers were able to use a larger battery
by doing things like wrapping the Wi-Fi and 3G antenna on the silver
outer ring of the device,
The new device and operating system, he added, “are years beyond what anybody else has.”
Jobs, comparing the new iPhone to a finely crafted
Leica camera, put it this way: “This is beyond doubt one of the most
precise, beautiful things we’ve ever made.”
Two websites, each claiming to have obtained
next-generation iPhones prototypes, already had disclosed some of the
innovations Apple announced Monday, including a front-facing camera for
video calls, a higher-resolution screen and a more svelte body.
Nonetheless, analysts were impressed.
“Apple is showing us the direction (the tech world) is going,” said
Some say “Apple fatigue” has hit the blogosphere as the company battles former allies
whose Flash video technology is barred from the iPhone platform, and as
software developers complain about the rigorous and opaque approval
process for the
meanwhile, is gaining ground on Apple in market share: In the first
quarter of 2010, Android, which runs on a number of devices and
carriers, ranked second in the North American smart-phone market — with
26.6 percent, up from 4.7 percent a year earlier — behind leader
But the industry “is still chasing Apple,” said
whose network is plagued with dropped calls and is often the butt of
derision by iPhone users. Jobs gave developers “100 million reasons” to
stay in the iPhone universe, the analyst added. “This is the
next-generation platform.”
Apple is expected to eventually hook up with
Even when a glitch occurred during Jobs’
presentation — he could not get a network connection to demo the iPhone
4 — it served only to underscore the company’s place atop the tech
world: The problem arose because bloggers, reporters and analysts were
jamming the network by running their laptops off 570 Wi-Fi base
stations so they could instantly report his every utterance.
“You know you could help me out; if you are on Wi-Fi, if you could just get off,” Jobs said to titters in the audience.
He showed off the high-resolution display, an
improved camera system with HD video capabilities and a new Apple-made
video app, iMovie, which lets users edit and share video.
In his “one more thing” moment, Jobs unveiled video chats in a video call with star Apple designer
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