With today's introduction of iPhone 4, Apple now finds itself with existing stock of the 16 GB and 32 GB iPhone 3GS models. Consequently, the company has dropped prices on those discontinued models to $799 (from $879) for the 16GB model and $879 (from $1,040) for the 32GB model.
Apple's online stores ran dry of the low-end 8 GB iPhone 3G several weeks ago. For its part, Apple will be maintaing its own $719 price point previously held by the 8 GB iPhone 3G by releasing a new iPhone 3GS similarly carrying only 8 GB of storage. While Apple almost certainly could have squeezed in 16 GB of storage at that price point, it elected not to do so, presumably to maintain differentiation from iPhone 4.
TUAW: During an Apple keynote, it's almost impossible to catch all of the info flooding out of Moscone. One thing we did catch, and then had to search for, was something about "Bumpers."
A quick look at the pages on the Apple Web site didn't seem to show anything until I scrolled to the bottom of the Tech Specs page. Lo and behold, there was a very short description of Bumpers. Available in six colors (white, black, blue, green, orange, or pink), Bumpers slip over the stainless steel edge of your iPhone 4. They come with metal buttons for volume and power and are made of a combo of rubber and molded plastic.
This may explain why we've received several tips over the last few days from people saying that iPhone cases are being removed from the Apple Stores. Bumpers are Apple's first foray into the iPhone case business (a market that has been run by third parties so far), and it will be fascinating to see not only how they sell, but what the reaction will be from long-time case manufacturers.
In addition to announcing the new iPhone 4 at today's WWDC keynote event, Steve Jobs reviewed the upcoming iPhone OS, now known as iOS 4. Previously announced at a special event in April, the OS update will include multi-tasking, a unified inbox, folders, and other features. Newly-announced today is the inclusion of Bing as an additional search engine option as well as the iBooks app, which is currently only available for the iPad.
iOS 4 has been declared Golden Master Candidate and will be publicly released on June 21st. It will be a free upgrade for existing iPhone and iPod touch owners, though depending on the age of your device not all features many be available. This is the first time that a major OS update has been free for iPod touch owners.
MacRumors: Apple has now posted its feature video for the iPhone 4, entitled "This changes everything. Again." The video was shown at the conclusion of Steve Jobs' WWDC keynote presentation today.
The video is similar in theme to one shown at the end of Apple's January media event held to introduce the iPad, showing off the features within the context of the user experience and offering sound bites from Apple executives discussing the new product.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has revealed a next-generation iPhone that features the ability to shoot and edit high-definition quality video and a crisp higher-resolution screen in San Francisco last night (3AM AEDST).
"We are going to take the biggest leap since the original iPhone," Jobs said in a keynote speech at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference here.
The "iPhone 4" will go on sale on June 24 in Britain, France, Germany, Japan and the United States. Australia will get the phone in July. Local prices have not been announced but two-year contract prices in the US through AT&T will be $US199 for the 16 GB model and $US299 for the 32GB version.
The iPhone 4 includes more than 100 new features including a front-facing video camera to allow for video-conferencing, a better still camera, improved battery life and a screen with significantly higher resolution, Jobs said.
The front-facing video camera will allow iPhone owners to have video chats with Macintosh computers or iPhone to iPhone.
The new iPhone also allows users to "record HD video and edit it on a device you carry with you everyday," said Randy Ubillos, Apple's chief architect for video applications, demonstrating Apple's iMovie video editing program.
Jobs touted the higher-resolution screen as a major leap forward. "There has never been a display like this on a phone," he said.
The 3.5-inch screen is the same size as on previous models but features 326 pixels per inch, four times more pixels than the earlier iPhones.
"There is a magic number around 300 pixels per inch that is the limit of the human retina," Jobs said. "We are over that limit."
"That's going to set the standard for display for years to come," he said.
The improved battery allows for 40 percent more talk time, Jobs said.
He said the iPhone 4 - at 9.3 millimeters - is 24 per cent thinner than the previous model, iPhone 3GS.
"It is really thin," Jobs said. "It is one of the most beautiful designs you've ever seen. Its closest kin is a beautiful old Leica camera."
Jobs said the iPhone 4 features a five-megapixel camera, an improvement on the previous three-megapixel camera.
The Apple chief executive joked that some of the attendees at the conference may have seen the iPhone 4 previously "because there have been a few photos around."
Technology blog Gizmodo obtained a prototype of the phone in April from a 21-year-old man who found it in a California beer garden, where it had been lost by an Apple software engineer, and published details of the device.
Apple launched the iPhone in 2007 and has sold more than 50 million of the devices.
Before displaying the latest iPhone, Jobs said that more than five million digital books have been downloaded since Apple began selling its iPad tablet computer two months ago.
He said the 8500 applications developed for the iPad have been downloaded more than 35 million times from Apple's App Store.
Jobs, dressed in his trademark black turtleneck and blue jeans, received a standing ovation as he walked on stage to address the more than 5200 software developers attending the conference.
Apple has sold more than two million iPads since the touchscreen device went on sale in the United States in early April and in nine other countries late last month.
BGR: We haven’t actually heard that date whispered, per se, but here is where our thinking is at. We have confirmed with multiple AT&T store reps that their sales quotas for the month of June are ridiculously high. Yes, this means the iPhone is confirmed to launch in June, not July. Knowing how many units stores received per day/week last year, if the iPhone launched in the last week of June, on Friday the 25th, we’re pretty sure the new sales quotas couldn’t be met (in-store orders don’t count as they don’t get recognized until the customer picks them up). We have heard stores having a 25-30% increase in their sales quota, so we’d like to think the next Apple iPhone will launch on Friday, June 18th. We’ll see pretty shortly.
