The new iPhone 4 has been introduced at WWDC, and it offers a spate of improvements over the older models.
Many of these—front and rear cameras, wifi videoconferencing app, LED flash, improved wifi antenna system—don’t have a lot to do with e-books, but something that does is the iPhone’s new 960×640 (326 pixels per inch, on a par with print quality) high-resolution high-contrast display. The contrast ratio of the new display is 800:1, a 4x improvement over the 3GS’s screen. Battery life has been improved, too, offering an iPad-like ten hours of video or wifi web browsing, six hours of 3G browsing.
Judging by the description, those who prefer to read e-books on a smaller, iPhone-sized device will probably find this the best iPhone yet—near-iPad resolution and battery life in a pocket-sized package. Price will be $199 for 16-gig or $299 for 32-gig models with two-year contract.
Presumably, the new display will also be in the next generation of iPod Touch, which should be announced in the fall. Since that device will cost about the same but not be shackled to a cell phone contract, it might very well be the perfect pocket-sized e-book reader.
In other e-book-related WWDC news, Jobs said that later this month iBooks is going to gain the ability to read PDFs, as well as let users add bookmarks and notes. Jobs also said that the iBooks store now has a 22% share of the e-book market, and expects that number to keep rising.
Let’s hope the new iPad touch includes a camera as good as the one on the back of the new iPhone. Even better, Apple should offer multiple models of the iPad touch.
1. A productivity model with a camera and maybe a GPS.
2. A tourist model with a GPS and long battery life.
3. A sport model that’s waterproof and has both a camera and a GPS.
4. A kid’s model that very rugged.
I’m still waiting to buy books in the Canadian iBookstore. C’mon publishers.