Apple enthusiasts weren’t disappointed Tuesday. The Apple iPhone 4 is living up to the market’s expectations with an entirely new design and next-generation features that could cause some Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless consumers to jump on the AT&T bandwagon.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs, donning his signature blue jeans, black turtleneck, and white sneakers, introduced the iPhone 4 at the Worldwide Developers Conference and the buzz just keeps getting louder.
“iPhone 4 is the biggest leap since the original iPhone,” Jobs said. “FaceTime video calling sets a new standard for mobile communication, and our new Retina display is the highest-resolution display ever in a phone, with text looking like it does on a fine printed page. We have been dreaming about both of these breakthroughs for decades.”
‘Next Year’s Technology at Last Year’s Prices’
FaceTime is Apple’s version of video chat. It lets you see the person you are talking to on the iPhone 4, so long as you have Wi-Fi. FaceTime also lets you use the rear camera to show others what you are seeing with a quick tap on the device. Complimenting FaceTime is the new 3.5-inch Retina display. It offers 960×640 pixels. That’s four times as many pixels as the iPhone 3GS and 78 percent of the pixels on an iPad.
“Video chat has been around for a while. We’ve seen it on other devices, but it’s never something that’s been promoted or advertised as a major feature,” said Michael Gartenberg, a partner at Altimeter Group. “More importantly, this is done with a degree of complexity and elegance. You add up that combination and the fact that Apple is selling basically next year’s technology at last year’s prices, and there’s no doubt that this phone is going to do very well.”
Part of the new technology is a five-megapixel autofocus camera…