Definitive Designs

Today at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference of 2010, Steve Jobs has unveiled the new iPhone. The fourth generation iPhone comes with the new iPhone 4.0 OS, and such features a slimmer design with glass casing. Two cameras (one front and one back with LED flash), reworked volume buttons, micro SIM card, second mic with noise cancellation. The metallic bezel of the case doubles up as a large antenna which helps boost the reception signal.

The new IPS screen has four times the amount of pixels compared to the original iPhone, with pixel density being 326 pixels per inch with a screen resolution of 960×640 and 800:1 contrast ratio. This results in a much sharper text. The phone is powered by the A4 CPU just like the iPad, and has an improved battery time with 7 hours talk time, 6 hours of 3G browsing, 10 hours of WiFi, 10 hours of video, 40 hours of music, and 300 hours of standby. There will be up to 32GB of storage, a gyroscope for up to 6 axis of motion sensing, along with 802.11n network adapter.

The camera on the back is 5 megapixels with 5x digital zoom and auto focus. The camera also records 720p HD video at 30 frames per second. You can keep the LED flash on while recording, and share it with just a few easy steps. Additionally there will also be a version of iMovie for the iPhone. The front facing camera enables video calling.

The operating system has been renamed to iOS 4, which will also be available for the older iPhones (3G and 3GS) and free for the iPod Touch. One of its biggest new additions is multitasking made in a way that would drain as little amount of battery power as possible while running multiple applications in the background. Other features included in the new OS are folders for sorting applications for easier access, social gaming network, ibooks, iads for in-app advertising, and more. Today, the iOS4 goes Gold master, which means that it’s close to being released to the general public.

The new iPhone will be available in white or black/ It goes on sale June 24th  (pre-orders start June 15th) from AT&T and Apple, and will be priced as follows: $199 for 16gig and $299 for 32gig. More information is available on AT&T and Apple websites.

After many months of speculation, the Apple tablet is finally here. The device is officially named the Apple iPad. It comes with a 9.7 inch IPS LCD display, is 0.5 inches thick, weights 1.5lbs, has 16GB, 32GB and 64GB of storage, accelerometer, compass, speaker, microphone, a built-in 802.11n wireless adapter, 3G (for wireless phone provider data plans), several connectors including speakers, microphone and 30 pin (for such things as the keyboard dock), bluetooth, a 1GHz Apple A4 chip, multi-touch surface, and it has 10 hours of battery life with about a month’s worth of standby. The iPad is capable of web browsing (no visible signs of a Flash player), and has a built in iTunes app store. This device can also run games and apps from the AppStore (runs iPhone’s apps at windowed iPhone resolution, or scales to double the size), YouTube, movies, television episodes, has an email client, book reading (iBook), iWork ($9.99) for iPad, and more.

The WiFi iPad will cost $499, $599 and $699 according to storage size. The 3G versions of the iPad will cost $130 extra. The WiFi versions will be available around April, with 3G versions coming out a month later. The 3G data plan for iPad will be $14.99 for 250 megabytes, and $29.99 for unlimited (no contact required for either plan), along with free WiFi hotspots all from AT&T. The 3G devices will be unlocked, and will use GSM micro SIMs. There will also be an optional keyboard dock for easy typing on the device.

Dev Team has once again came through with their promises. Tonight, about 12 hours away from iPhone’s 3.0 software release they have demonstrated a working jailbreak and unlocking work-around. They have not released the applications to patch iPhone’s software yet because they don’t want Apple to fix it at the last minute before the official 3.0 release, but have promised that it will be out shortly after 3.0 is out. If you want more information, visit Dev Team’s blog website, but remember – jailbreaking and/or unlocking your phone voids the iPhone’s warranty.

The next iPhone is finally here! Apple has announced its third generation iPhone 3GS. The phone is available in black or white color as either 16GB or 32GB. The new version of iPhone 3.0 software will be included with the phone, adding such features as copy, paste, search across platform, MMS, horizontal keyboard layout for typing, push notification, tethering with your computer, turn by turn navigation, better language support and more. Safari with Java also gets a speed boost under OS 3.0 – up to 3x compared to the previous version. There is also a new feature called Find Me which is a service offered to MobileMe users which helps users track their lost or stolen iPhone over Google Maps. You can send a command to the phone which will cause it to emit a sound even if the phone has its sound turned off. Additionally you can send a wipe command to the phone which will erase contacts, and other personal data. In App Purchase allows you to buy content inside an App Store bought applications.

On the hardware side of things there are improvements to bluetooth and how it interacts with other software and hardware. The phone will have a faster processor and graphics, a higher resolution camera (3MP) with auto focus, 30fps video recording, voice controls, Nike+ support, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, a digital compass, increase of system RAM, encryption, better batery life (3G is 5 hours, while WiFi is 9 hours), and more. There will also be updates to iTunes which deal with parental controls, movies, tv shows, music and audio books. The pricing for the new phones is $199 for 16GB, and $299 for 32GB (both versions come in either black or white color) and it will be available on sale on June 19th. This price is available with a new two-year contract with AT&T. The current 8GB 3G will be lowered in price to $99. Official photos and information is available on Apple’s website.

Additionally to announcing the new iPhone, Apple has also announced the next operating system named Snow Leopard, version 10.6. Some new features present in the new operating system are integrated Expose into the dock. Up to 45% faster install, with 6GB space recovered after upgrading over Leopard. Mail is 2.3x faster, and Safari 4 Final will be released today. Preview is 2x faster with better PDF support. Also a new version of QuickTime called QuickTimeX has been demoed which has been completel redisigned. Upgrade to Leopard 10.5 will cost $29, while Family Pack will be $49 on sale in September. The official site contains more information about the features and updates to the software.

Announced at WWDC 2009 are updates to the MacBook Pro line. The notebooks get up to 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo CPU’s, up to 500GB 7200RPM hard drives (or 256GB SSD hard drives), an improved screen, a SD memory card slot, a longer lasting battery, backlit keyboard, and firewire 800. Starting price is $1,699, and it goes on sale today. MacBook Pro’s (13″ alunimum MacBook now renamed to MacBook Pro) also get similar updates to hard drive, SD memory slot and improved screen start at $1,199. MacBook Air gets these updates as well. All of the new laptops meet the EP Gold and Energy Star v5 standards.

Today Apple has demonstrated the upcoming iPhone 3.0 operating system. Coming this summer, the next version of the iPhone OS will have many new features which customers feel should have been available at the time of the phone’s release. Some of these new features will include the following:

-In-App Purchasing: Allows the sales of additional content from developers.
-Peer-To-Peer: Sharing of data.
-Third-Party Accessory Applications: Applications to interact with other hardware.
-Push Notification: Push badge, text, and audio alerts from servers instead of using background process.
-Cut, Copy and Paste: One of the most anticipated updates, this feature will allow users to cut, copy and paste text across entire platform.
-Landscape Keyboard: For easier typing, the users will be able to use the keyboard in a landscape mode.
-MMS: Picture messaging – another long-awaited feature for the iPhone.
-Voice Memos: Record voice, etc.
-Spotlight Search: System wide search available across the platform.
-A2DP Bluetooth: Support for stereo Bluetooth headsets.

The beta is available as of now for developers, and will be available some time in the summer to general public. The iPod Touch upgrade will cost $9.95, while the rest will be free of charge. The first generation iPhone will most likely not be able to take advantage of some features such as MMS and stereo Bluetooth due to architectural limitations. For more information visit the website that Apple has launched for the iPhone 3.0 OS.

Several new additions can been spotted over at the Apple Store. The speeds of the mid-range MacBook Pro 15″ notebooks have been increased from 2.53GHz to 2.66GHz, and from 2.8GHz to 2.93GHz. Additionally, you can optionally purchase a 256GB SSD hard drive for the 13″ MacBook and 15″ MacBook Pro.

Another noticable update at the store is the new keyboard. It comes without the num pad, and can be purchased for $49. Great for space saver.

It looks like the people who were speculating on wether Apple would update or axe the Mac Mini don’t have to speculate anymore. Today Apple has released new and updated systems for everyone, starting with Mac Mini, iMac, and Mac Pro. Some of the configurations are for everyday computer users who don’t need much power, while others offer business production level of performance. Below is the list of some of the options that these systems have to offer.

The Mac Mini gets new Intel Core 2 Duo processors, more storage space, the NVidia 9400M graphics chipset, and up to four gigabytes of RAM. It is followed by iMac which gets storage boost from 320GB all the way up to 1TB. RAM is upgradable to 8GB, while video card chipsets range from NVidia 9400M, nVidia GeForce GT120, nVidia GeForce GT130, and ATI Radeon HD 4850. According to Notebookcheck, the GT130 card is like 9650M GT clocked at faster speeds, while GT120 is like 9650M GT, but clocked lower, and with lower power consumption. The screens remain 20 inch and 24 inch.

On the business-oriented side of things, the Mac Pro now has the Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nihalem” processors. The system either comes with just one CPU (2.26GHz or 2.93GHz), or two (2×2.6GHz, 2×2.66GHz, or 2×2.93GHz). RAM (1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM) can be expanded from 3GB (on the single CPU system) to 8GB, and 6GB (on the dual CPU system) to 32GB. The two hard drive sizes offered are 640GB and 1TB. Graphic cards include nVidia GeForce GT120 as a standard, and can be upgraded to ATI Radeon HD 4870.

Visit Apple’s website for more information on the newly released systems, and their pricing.

Just several weeks after releasing the jailbreak for the iPhone 3G, the Dev Team is once again ready to unveil their next project – a jailbreak for 2nd generation iPod Touch. The software isn’t final yet, but it seems as if its release is just around the corner. Once again, stop by Dev Team’s blog for more information on when the application will be released.