The new kid on the block – the iPhone 4 – has been described as impressive but is it a game-changer?

THE LATEST update to Apple’s iconic phone, iPhone 4, has been officially unveiled to an impatient public. At Apple’s developer conference, the Worldwide Developers Conference, in San Francisco this week, chief executive Steve Jobs showed off the slimmed down, souped-up device that has been dominating headlines for weeks, particularly in the wake of a leak of a prototype device by Gizmodo in April.

But Jobs shook off the events of the past few weeks. “Believe me, you ain’t seen this,” he told the crowd.

There weren’t many surprises in the finished device. A sharper screen, a better camera and a bigger battery were just some of the changes that had been flagged in the past few weeks.

Accompanying the announcement was the typical Apple rhetoric.

“It’s the biggest leap we’ve taken since the original iPhone,” Jobs said, describing the new phone as “the most precise, beautiful thing”.

The new version of Apple’s popular smartphone has a couple of notable features. First off is the improved battery, which claims to last for up to seven hours of talk-time compared to five for the previous version. It also gives you an extra 10 hours of audio playback, and an hour more of internet browsing over Wi-Fi.

The screen, dubbed Retina by Apple, increases the resolution to 326 dots an inch – that’s about four times as much as the iPhone 3GS and apparently more than the human eye can discern. It weighs in at 960x640 compared to the 3Gs’s 640x420. In reality, what it means is that you will get crisper text and images.

Apple hasn’t made the screen any bigger, however, keeping it at 3.5 inches, compared with rival HTC’s Desire and its 3.7-inch screen.

A dual microphone has been built into the new handset, with noise suppression technology that will (allegedly, at least) filter out the background noise and improve call quality.

The camera has had a bit of work too; it’s been boosted to five megapixels versus the 3GS’s three megapixel resolution and bringing it up to the same standard as the Desire’s.

It also builds in a flash for the first time, something that has become almost standard on other camera phones.

More importantly is the high-definition video recording that Apple promised. That beats the VGA quality of the previous iPhone hands down and outdoes the Desire’s VGA video.

The new iPhone will ship with iOS4, the latest versions of Apple’s operating system. Of course you don’t have to have an iPhone 4 to get this; the operating system will work with the 3GS and the 3G model, although the latter will not support multi-tasking.

Multi-tasking is something that iPhone users have long called for on the device. Rival Google’s Android operating system allows multitasking on applications, as does Research in Motion’s BlackBerry devices.

However, Apple did not support multi-tasking for third-party applications. With 225,000 now available in the Apple App Store, that’s a large chunk of applications that were left out in the cold.

The new OS brings about 100 new functions to the iPhone (or so Apple says; we haven’t counted them up yet).

One addition to the iPhone 4 that has caused some buzz is FaceTime. Working with the new front-facing camera and the second microphone on the iPhone 4, it will allow you to make video calls on your iPhone, although it will be limited to Wi-Fi only. It’s also limited to other devices with FaceTime – for the moment that’s just iPhone 4 models.

The announcement has had a mixed reaction. To some users, video-calling is nothing new. It’s been around in Ireland since the launch of 3G networks and hasn’t had a great take-up. Regular users of Skype also use the technology.

However, others are more excited about how FaceTime will shape future communication. It is an open standard, which means other developers can build FaceTime into their platforms.

Skype has already said it will be “open” to doing a deal with Apple and working with FaceTime, although it later emerged that rather than building FaceTime into its products, Skype was thinking more along the lines of making its products compatible with other FaceTime-enabled devices.

There’s been other changes on the inside too. The iPhone 4 comes with an A4 processor, the same one used in the iPad, which boosts the device’s speed. Previously, the 3Gs processor was 600MHz, and eclipsed by the Desire’s 1Ghz SnapDragon processor. The A4 processor, however, levels the playing field somewhat.

The iPhone has so far been extremely popular, but there has been increasing competition from Google with its Android devices.

Apple has sold more than 50 million iPhones since the initial launch in 2007, but if predictions from research firm IDC are accurate, Android could beat Apple in terms of shipments by 2013, with 68 million devices that year.

Gartner has previously said Android overtook Apple in the North American market in the first quarter of the year and is rating its chances of soon catching up with Apple globally.

The iPhone 4 could give Apple an increasing lead over the competition. “What you’re buying from Apple is not just the hardware. It’s the whole package, including the apps and the store. That is very impressive,” said Gartner analyst Kenneth Dulaney.

Despite the hype,though, not all analysts were convinced that the iPhone 4 is a game-changer, though it is a welcome advancement for the firm. “While nothing was really revolutionary in terms of the new features, I think that Apple took a nice step forward,” US-based analyst William Kreher said.

The iPhone will go on sale on June 24th in five countries, with a further 13 added by July. The number is expected to climb to 88 by September, which will make it the fastest international roll-out of the iPhone. – (Additional reporting: Reuters, Bloomberg)