Die-hard Apple fans who have just forked out for the iPad will need to dig deep, as the new iPhone is due to hit shops on June 24.
Apple will launch the device in the US, UK, France, Germany and Japan, priced at $199 (€167) for a 16GB model and $299 for a 32GB with a two-year contract. Online orders will be taken from June 15.
CEO Steve Jobs presented the new device in a keynote address at Apple’s annual developer conference, telling the crowd it was the “biggest leap since the original iPhone.”
The iPhone 4 features a new front-facing camera, and at 9.3 mm thick is 24% slimmer than the current 3GS model.
It has a higher resolution screen than the existing model, and will use Apple’s iOS 4 – the newest version of the iPhone operating system - to offer multitasking for the first time.
However, Jobs’ presentation wasn’t the usual slick Apple affair, as WiFi congestion meant the CEO struggled to get Web pages to load while demonstrating the new device, WSJ.com reports.
Jobs made light of recent leaks of iPhone 4 prototypes, joking with the crowd that they’d “probably already seen this,” the news site said.
At least two pre-release versions of the device fell into the hands of bloggers in the run up to the launch, with one left in a bar in the US and the other turning up in Vietnam.
What those leaks didn’t reveal is that the iPhone 4 will offer Microsoft’s Bing search engine, according to The Independent.
Bing will be offered as an alternative to the embedded Google search function, rather than a replacement, after Jobs pledged not to remove Google from Apple’s smartphones.
Apple also announced it will launch a mobile advertising network on July 1. iAd will be available on iPhone and iPod touch devices running iOS 4.