By Jordan Heller
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Technophiles anxiously awaiting the next-generation iPhone no longer have to rely on forgetful Apple engineers leaving prototypes behind at bars.
Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the fourth edition of his wildly popular smartphone at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on Monday afternoon.
“Stop me if you’ve already seen this,” Jobs joked to a packed room of 5,200 attendees from 57 countries before walking the audience through the new iPhone, according to CNET’s live blog of the event.
While the look and feel of the new device was famously leaked on Gizmodo more than a month ago, there were plenty of new features for Jobs to announce.
Among them: an antenna that wraps around the entire device, answering widespread iPhone user complaints of dropped calls; longer battery life, resulting in two more hours of 3G talk time; a five megapixel front- and back-facing camera with improved sensor, LED flash and HD video recording and video phone conferencing capabilities; and the ability to run multiple applications at the same time.
In addition to touting the new glass-and-steel design (just 9.3mm thick, a quarter thinner than iPhone 3GS) — “It’s closest kin is a beautiful old Leica camera,” said Jobs — the Apple CEO hyped iPhone 4’s much-improved retina display.
The new device boasts four times more pixel density than its predecessor, for a total of 326 pixels per square inch. For comparison, most monitors are only 100 dpi.
Of course, new apps were announced, too.
To take advantage of iPhone 4’s improved display quality, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was on hand to announce a new Netflix app. This summer, the online movie rental company will start offering streaming videos on the iPhone.
And to accommodate new video recording capabilities, Apple announced a new iPhone version of iMovie, the popular film editing application available on Apple computers. iPhone users will now be able to edit movies before sending them out to friends — all from the new handheld device.
iPhone 4 goes on sale June 24; $199 for the 16GB model, $299 for the 32GB version.
