iPhone 4 Summary

Okay, so the WWDC keynote was this morning ... I briefly considered a 3am wake up to follow the liveblogs, but sanity prevailed and I settled for waking up a bit early and reviewing the blogs. The keynote didn't really cover anything that hadn't made it out into the world already. The new iPhone, simply "iPhone 4", was announced. The iPhone OS has been renamed iOS (I wonder what Cisco thinks about that). Guitar Hero and Farmville now available on the iPhone (wut?). I got a little too excited about a fairly simple change to an iPad app ... iBooks will have PDF support, including annotations. Okay, I know it's sad, let's move on to the only real announcement.

iPhone 4 - quick stats

• Same storage options - 16/32GB
• Front facing camera (video calls iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 only, and WiFi only until Apple works with carriers)
• Hi-res display, 960x640-pixel resolution at 326 ppi
• 5MP camera, LED flash and 720p video recording
• Gyroscope for more motion control
• Quad-band 3G (includes 900MHz band, which will help Optus!)
• 802.11n wireless
• Steel band around the side is the antenna
• MicroSIM format (saw that coming)

Really, from a consumer standpoint, there's really not a huge amount here that isn't coming to the 3GS once iOS4 is released. The new backgrounds and apps (iBooks for iPhone) will be available for the 3GS, the app folders and multitasking will also be brought down to 3GS.

Some of the technology in this is pretty cool though. I really wanna see the screen. The idea of a pixel density so high you can't actually distinguish pixels appeals to me.

The ability to record 720p video is a very nice addition, as is the 5MP bump on the camera, but it doesn't really mean much if the sensors don't improve at low light. The 3GS takes perfectly acceptable photos ... in bright light. But in dim or low light, like trying to photograph bonfire day, the camera doesn't hold up. So I don't really care about the megapixels as much as I want the sensor to improve.

The most interesting thing is the antenna structure. The case for iPhone 4 is front and back plates, with a steel band running around the sides. The left side and part of the top band is the Bluetooth/WiFi/GPS antenna, and the rest is the GSM/UMTS antenna. Very cool.

The rest is just eye candy which, while impressive, is not having the same effect on me that it might normally given the money I just spent on another Apple product.

Lastly - release date. June 21 for iOS4 on iPhone/iPod touch. June 25 for iPhone 4 in the US/UK/France/Germany/Japan. "July" for Australia/NZ and 16 other countries.