Read this from bottom to top so you can get a timeline of what was announced!
The rumors are true: iPhone 4 is real and it’s coming soon. Steve jobs has unveiled the 4th generation of the wildly popular iPhone on stage at Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco, California, along with countless other surprises. Live blog updates appear below in reverse-chronological order. Refresh this page for the latest updates.
11:32 – Steve Jobs’ trademark “one more thing,” which we haven’t seen much of in recent years, is back. What is it? Of course: Videoconferencing. You’d forgotten about that new camera on the front of the phone, right?
11:22 – Developers who want to integrate ads into their applications (presumably to keep app prices down) can now do so via Apple directly. Introducing iAds. Apple is running out of things to put after the letter “i.” Ad demos follow. (Feel free to use the restroom now.)
11:16 – The news you’ve been waiting for: iBooks for the iPhone 4. You can feel the excitement over this enormous announcement. (/sarcasm) Actually, it’s an indicator of how seriously Apple is targeting books, including a dedicated iBooks store on the phone. Amazon and its Kindle are surely quaking in their boots.
11:15 – iOS 4 ships to developers today. No word on a release date to the public. Just “soon.” Nearly 100 million “iOS devices” sold to date.
11:14 – More rumors come true: Bing joings Google and Yahoo! as a search provider option.
11:09 – iPhone OS gets a new name: iOS. iOS 4 adds 100 new features to the phone, including the long-awaited multitasking. (This has previously been announced by Apple.) Other new features included a unified inbox, threaded email, and folders that let you group apps together — looks perfect for those of us with overstuffed screens.
10:58 – Video editing and sharing built in. A version of iMovie will appear on the iPhone now, complete with transitions, credits, and all that jazz. Demo looks snazzy, but who ever has the time and patience to edit videos they shoot on their phone? iMovie won’t be standard; $4.99 to download.
10:56 – Camera is upgraded to 5 megapixels, with 5x digital zoom and the aforementioned “illuminated sensor” (don’t call it a flash — Apple hates Flash). Also records video in HD resolution (720p at 30 fps). Flip cameras are in trouble.
10:50 – Internal accelerometer features are also upgraded to add a gyroscope to the mix. It’s a little wonky, but now the phone will sense movement on a six-axis basis. Pretty early stuff, we’ll see how developers (mainly game devs) take advantage of this.
10:48 – iPhone is now powered by Apple’s A4 chip. Battery is bigger, and Jobs promises 40% more talk time than before (great news). 32GB of storage standard (no upgrade vs. the 3GS). And support for 7.2Mbps networks… once AT&T supports it.
10:46 – As rumored, 960 x 640 pixels of resolution on the 3.5-inch display. That’s unheard of on a cell phone and actually approaches what most smaller laptops have. 78% of the pixels that the iPad has.
10:43 – Hiccups with the demo… blame the AT&T network. (That’s what I do!)
10:38 – The display is going to knock you out of your New Balances. With 326 pixels per inch, it has a better display than the human eye can even process (300 ppi, per Jobs). It’s called a “retina display.” Will have to have some hands on time to see exactly how much better it looks — and the existing iPhone screen looks pretty good as it is.
10:35 – All the rumors are true. The new phone has the thinner, squared-off design we’ve seen in the leaked photos of the device, redesigned buttons, a front-facing camera, a flash on the rear camera, a secondary microphone for noise cancellation, and improved antennas integrated right into the design. 26% thinner than the iPhone 3GS: The thinnest smartphone ever, according to Jobs.
10:33 – Now it’s time for the main event. iPhone. It’s real: the iPhone 4 (the official name) is as expected, with a new case design.
10:28 – Jobs is done with app demos. More statistics: 5 billion apps downloaded so far, with $1 billion paid to app developers. iPhone has (according to Jobs) a 28 percent market share vs. 9 percent for Android. (But Blackberry still has 35 percent.)
10:24 – Guitar Hero for the iPhone? Zzzz. We already have Rock Band for the iPhone, this doesn’t look that thrilling. “A new strumming mechanic” will make gameplay perfect. Not that excited.
10:20 – Zynga’s Farmville comes to the iPhone. The first Facebook app that I’m aware of to make the crossover from PC to phone. Now 70 million players can plant and harvest no matter where they are. “Farm anytime, anywhere!” That was grandpa’s motto, too. Arriving this month.
10:16 – Netflix, at long last, is coming to the iPhone. Reed Hastings, Netflix’s CEO, is out to give the demo. Looks a lot like the iPad application, letting you stream video and manage your queue on your iPhone. Pause a move on the iPad and it picks up where you left off on the iPhone. And — big news — it will work over the cell phone network as well as Wi-Fi. AT&T must be cringing already.
10:12 – Jobs is already into pumping up HTML5 and trashing Flash. Why, because apps cocded with “private APIs” … “break and crash.” With 225,000 apps available, that’s a problem.
10:09 – New iBooks feature will include a note-taking system that emulates Post-Its (looks very Apple-like), bookmarks, and native PDF viewing (see, Apple doesn’t hate everything that Adobe does). Updates should roll out this month.
10:07 – Now 200,000 iPhone apps available. Demos of iPad apps getting underway. 5 million books downloaded for the iPad so far (in a little over two months). Jobs say publishers are in love with the iPad already.
10:03 – Various updates about the conference (which starts today), with Jobs’ usual braggadocio about how big the event has become. Then on to the sales updates. The “magical” iPad of course (2 million units).
10:01 – Steve Jobs takes the stage right on time to a standing ovation.
This year (as it’s been in the last three), all eyes are on the iPhone, as a now infamous leak has all but confirmed that a new model iPhone – alternately dubbed the iPhone HD and the iPhone 4G – will be announced. Will all the leaked details come to pass as expected? And what else does Jobs have up his turtleneck sleeves for us to look out for in 2010?
