Apple unveils iPhone 4 with 720p HD Recording

Apple CEO Steve Jobs kick-started the Worldwide Developers Conference 2010 in San Francisco with the announcement of the next generation iPhone model - iPhone 4. After the infamous Gizmodo and Vietnamese iPhone 4 leak, Apple has stuck to its plans and announced the fourth generation iPhone model. Just like the first generation iPhone was killed when the iPhone 3G was launched, the iPhone 3G will be sold no more. The iPhone 3GS would be sold for $99 with a two years contract.

Clad with wonderful new features, Apple will start selling iPhone 4 starting at $199 with a two years contract in U.S. from June 24. The iPhone 4 would be available in a 16GB version costing $199 and 32GB version costing $299. Before we start off with the details of the iPhone 4, let's get one thing straight about the operating system. Apple has renamed the iPhone OS 4.0 for iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch devices to iOS4. From June 21, the iOS4 upgrade will be available free for all devices.

Design:

The all new iPhone 4 is just 9.3mm thick and is 24 percent thinner than the iPhone 3GS. It's pretty much similar to what we saw in the leaked photos that soared on the web. On the top, the iPhone 4 has a 3.5mm headset jack, secondary mic and the sleep-wake up button. At the bottom, the iPhone 4 sports the primary mic, speaker and Apple's proprietary 30-pin connector port. Of course we have the volume controls on the sides.

Design-wise, Apple drops the rounded hinds design and adopts box like structure for the new iPhone 4 model. Apple has used stainless steel rims for binding the iPhone 4 body. These rims have integrated antennas and act as bonding agents to hold two glass panels on the front and the back of the iPhone 4.

Display:

With the new iPhone 4, Apple debuts new display dubbed as 'Retina Display'. This 3.5-inch multi-touch display offers 960x640 pixel resolution at 326 pixels per inch. This means crisper images and more amazing graphics display while playing games. Apart from that, this IPS technology based panel will offer 800:1 contrast ratio that would be four times better than the previous generation iPhone devices.

So, you can comfortably watch 720p HD movies on this 960x640 pixel display with more accurate colors. Apart from that, both front display and back panel would come coated with fingerprint resistant oleophobic coating.

Processor:

If you can recollect the mysterious Apple A4 System-on-Chip processor used in the iPad, you won't be surprised to discover that Apple has used the same A4 processor on the iPhone 4. Apple claims that this chip is power efficient and hence conserves power to add up to the battery life.

Camera:

Apple has added 5 megapixel sensor with backside illuminated sensor and LED Flash. This new camera will also offer five times digital zoom and tap to focus options. Not only that, this 5 megapixel camera sensor is capable of recording 720p HD video at 30 frames per second. The LED Flash will stay illuminated for recording better quality picture in videos.

The iPhone 4 has a front facing camera that enables video calling dubbed as FaceTime that works even when the Wi-Fi is turned off. No setup or installation is required as FaceTime works out of the box. Apple has built FaceTime using a bunch of open standards like SIP (Session Initiation Protoco), H.264, AAC and so on.

Apple will also introduce new iMovie for iPhone app for video editing that will include options like scene transitions, themes, editable titles, and much more. This app will be available at a price of $5 after iOS4 is rolled out to everyone.

Will iPhone 4 turn out to be a killer of Flip Mino HD and the likes? We'll wait and see.

Gyroscope:

Apple has added three-axis gyroscope, a device maintaining orientation or measuring it based on the rotation mechanism of the object. This, clubbed with Accelerometer on the iPhone 4 makes it capable of 6-axis motion sensing. This is similar to Sony PlayStation 3's game controller which has gyroscopic motion sensing. It's quite possible that in the near future, we may see touchscreen apps supplementing the game controllers.

Battery life:

One of the major issues of all the iPhone users has been the battery life and hence, Apple has put a larger battery in the iPhone 4. The lithium-ion rechargeable battery promises to offer up to 7 hours of talk time on 3G networks and 14 hours of talk time on 2G networks. Also, one can listen to music for 40 hours or watch videos for up to 10 hours. The most amazing part is that users can now browser mobile web for up to 10 hours on the iPhone 4, that is as much as offered by new Intel Atom Pine Trail platform based netbooks.

Bumpers:

Since Apple would be using iPhone 4's outer rims as a part of its antenna system, the company has come out with its own set of cases to protect the iPhone. Apple has introduced iPhone 4 protection cases dubbed as Bumpers that would be available in white, black, green, blue, orange and pink colors. Made out of moulded plastic and rubber, these cases are meant to keep the antenna system as well the glass panels safe.

Other features:

• Quadband HSDPA/HSUPA
• Wi-Fi (802.11n) 
• Assisted GPS
• Accelerometer
• Digital Compass
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• iBooks App as free download
• Microsoft's search engine Bing officially added to search engine options.
• Micro SIM just like the ones used in iPad

Quite a lot of features like multi-tasking and folders utilities will arrive with the iOS4 update for other Apple devices but iPhone 4 will come preloaded with it. The iPhone 4 will require iTunes 9.2 so we can anticipate that iTunes software upgrade in the coming weeks. Apple iPhone 4 will be available in white and black colors. Pre-orders begin on June 15 and phones will start shipping on June 24 in U.S., France, Germany, UK and Japan. Apple will roll out the iPhone 4 to 18 more countries in July, 24 more in August, and 40 more in September. Let's hope that India would be considered during August or at least September roll out of iPhone 4 device.

Nokia N900 Arrives in India Officially

Nokia's Maemo 5 based tablet, the N900, was available in India via unofficial channels for quite some time now. Seeing the demand for the handset in the grey market, Nokia seems to have thought of bringing in the handset officially to India and that is exactly what it has done today.
Nokia has officially launched the N900 in India. The N900 boasts of an impressive hardware spec sheet that begins right from the processor - an ARM Cortex A8 that provides 1GB of application memory and Open GL ES 2.0 Graphics acceleration support.

The OS is Linux-based Maemo 5 that provides the device comprehensive multitasking ability. The N900 also features a WVGA touchscreen and a full, slide-out QWERTY keyboard. It comes with 32GB of memory (which really isn't an upgrade over the N97) and an expansion slot - you can add up to 48GB - which should suffice for "normal" users. With a decent 5 megapixel camera, the N900 seems to take photography seriously. All the other features you might expect find their way in as well. We're talking about the A-GPS and FM transmitter support. On the connectivity front, it supports HSPA Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity as well.
The phone will cost Rs. 30,639 in India, which is on the expensive side - but is well below the initial expected cost of the handset - which was just over Rs. 35,000. The N900 was officially launched in August 2009.

Nokia Announces Inexpensive Dual SIM Phones

World's largest phone maker Nokia has been famous for not making dual SIM phones. Well, not any longer! The company has announced a bunch of low-cost phones, including dual SIM handsets, starting at EUR 30. These new devices are slated to arrive on sale later this year in Africa and Asia.
The four new devices launched belong to Nokia's low cost C-Series of handsets. Out of these, two are dual SIM handsets while two are single SIM solutions. The C2 and the C1-00 are the dual SIM handsets.
Along with the C2, three new single SIM phones under the C1 name have been announced. As mentioned earlier, one of the C1 phones is a two-in-one dual SIM phone. The C2 is expected to go on sale by the fourth quarter of 2010.
The most affordable of the Nokia C1 trio (C1-00) is priced at EUR 30 and is the first Nokia mobile phone to feature a 2-in-1 double SIM solution. This phone can take in two SIM cards but only one would be active at any given point of time. Users can switch from one SIM to another with the flick of a switch. The C1 offers users a standby battery time of up to six weeks, the longest ever for a Nokia mobile phone, especially useful in those parts of the world where access to electricity is limited. The utilitarian nature of the phone is highlighted by the presence of a flashlight that can help people wade through darkness should he be in one of the remote corners of the planet where there is no electricity. The entire C1 range comes with color displays, FM Radio and a standard headphone jack.

As for the other two members of the C1 family, they are single IM devices (C1-01 and C1-02)  and are Nokia's most affordable devices offering microSD compatibility supporting up to 32GB of memory.

Nokia C1-01

Both new devices boast of color screens, web browsing over GPRS and access to Nokia web services such as Nokia Messaging. The C1-01 has a VGA camera and is capable of video recording as well.

Nokia C1-02

As for the C2, it happens to be a "real" dual SIM phone where both the SIM cards would be active. The first SIM card on the Nokia C2 sits underneath the battery and the second is 'hot-swappable', a feature unique to Nokia. This means the second SIM card can be removed and inserted when the phone is on. Apart from being dual SIM, the C2 will also offer its users a wide range of information covering healthcare, agriculture, education and entertainment via Nokia's Ovi Life Tools, as well as the email account for the developing world, Ovi Mail. In addition to Ovi Mail, it also supports Nokia Messsaging  - making the C2  a very capable entry level phone. It has an FM radio and music player and guess what? It can take microSD cards of up to 32GB!

Nokia also took the wraps off the Nokia Bicycle Charger Kit, an alternative charging solution built especially for people with limited access to electricity.
The estimated retail prices of the new Nokia mobile phones, before taxes and subsidies, are:

• Nokia C1 (C1-00) - EUR 30 (Rs. 1,700)
• Nokia C1 (C1-02) - EUR 35 (Rs. 2,000)
• Nokia C1 (C1-01) - EUR 39 (Rs. 2,200)
• Nokia C2 (C2-00) - EUR 45 (Rs. 2,500)

The Nokia C1 (C1-00) is expected to ship in the third quarter of 2010, with the Nokia C1 (C1-01) in the early fourth quarter, and the Nokia C1 (C1-02) and Nokia C2 towards the end of the fourth quarter 2010.

Nokia Bicycle Phone Charger in India Soon

On June 3, when Nokia announced its first dual SIM phones and two other low cost phones, it also launched an accessory - a Bicycle charger kit.
The kit consists of a DC-14 phone charger, a phone holder that you can attach to your bicycle, a dynamo, that would be used to power the batteries and a bunch of accessories needed to install the kit on your bike.

After it's installed, the kit will charge your phone when you ride the bike at speeds in excess of 6 km/hour. Nokia suggests that the speed of the bike be over 12 km/hour for best efficiency. 
If you happen to live in a village in India, you might have seen how dynamos fitted on bicycles provide light to the bicycle in the dark. The same principle is being used here - except that instead of lighting, the dynamo is used to charge your phone. If you happen to be alien to this concept, let us explain briefly. The dynamo is a small motor that is uses the movement of your bikes wheels to generate electricity. So, whenever you ride your bike, you have electricity at your disposal! As for the Nokia kit, it is compatible with any Nokia handset that has a standard 2mm charging jack.

To say that this kit is a brilliant idea would be an understatement.  In countries like India and China where bicycles still are a common means of transport, a very reliable source of electricity like this that could be used to charge ones phone could prove to be indispensable. The bicycle charger would be available starting Q4, 2010 and is expected to cost just over EUR 15  (Rs.850).

Google Chrome OS to be released this September

At the on-going Computex 2010 Expo, Google announced that Chrome OS would be released in Fall (September) this year.
Google's vice president of product management, Sundar Pichai said, "We are working on bringing the device later this fall." So now, we have a fixed time frame when Chrome OS will finally be made available on notebooks and desktops. It was in July 2009 that Google had announced Linux kernel based Chrome OS for desktops and notebooks. This open source operating system is based on Google's Chrome browser and is designed to work seamlessly with web applications.
Pichai added, "It's something which we are very excited by ... We expect it to reach millions of users on day one." Untill we come across and use a Chrome OS based device, we cannot say whether Google will beat Microsoft or not. Google Chrome OS would be available on notebooks and desktops from partners like Acer, Asus, HP and Lenovo.