iPhone 4: 10 Features You Need To Know About

By David Woods on June 7th, 2010

Steve Jobs announced the iPhone 4 at the WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) today. Techies had already gotten a good look at the phone, since tech blog Gizmodo found a prototype and wrote all about it (and, subsequently, were barred from attending the WWDC).

There’s no denying that the new iPhone looks really sweet. The glass and stainless steel design is certainly an improvement over the abundance of plastic in the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. But how do the new features stack up?

Allow us to make things easy for you. Here are 10 things you need to know about the new iPhone:

The new iPhone is called the iPhone 4. Not iPhone 4G or iPhone HD, like some people had guessed. Just iPhone 4.
It comes in 2 colors: black and white. Both look pretty slick, but I still prefer the black.
It will cost $199 for the 16GB model and $299 for the 32GB. With a service contract with AT&T, of course. If your current AT&T contract expires in 2010, you are eligible for a new iPhone 4 at the same prices, if you agree to top up your contract by 2 years.
AT&T is still the exclusive service provider for the iPhone. There were rumors that Verizon would get into the game, but those turned out to be false.
The iPhone 4 has video chat. The iPhone 4’s video chat feature is called FaceTime and it allows you to chat portrait or landscape mode and use either the front or back camera. It will only work over WiFi, though.

Seriously, it has video chat! How is that not awesome? We are finally getting close to living in the future. Hoverboards can’t be far behind.
The camera can now shoot HD video. You will be able to shoot 720p at 30fps. You’ll be able to tap to focus when shooting video. You will even be able to edit the movies that you shoot on your phone using iMovie (it’s coming to the iPhone).
The display screen is way better. Apple calls it “Retina Display,” which is a fancy way of saying that they have crammed so many pixels into the screen that the human eye couldn’t possibly see any more. There are apparently 4 times as many pixels as the iPhone 3GS, which means very sharp images.
The battery life will be better. You’re probably asking, “how could it get any worse?” It’s true that the battery in the iPhone 3GS is pathetic, but Apple promises that the iPhone 4 will have much improved battery life. They claim that it will last for 7 hours of 3G talk, 6 hours of 3G browsing, 10 hours of WiFi browsing, 10 hours of video and 40 hours of music. Cut those numbers in half, and that’s probably a realistic estimate.
It will be able to multitask. You won’t have to quit one app to open another. You can move seamlessly from email to music to games. This upgrade will be included as part of the iPhone 4’s new operating system, called iOS4. The new operating system is expected to be available for older iPhones, but not all of the features will work.