The iPhone 4

It is now four years since the first iPhone model came to market and much has changed between that first Apple handset and the new iphone4.

Although it received a tremendous reception from the public some critics did not consider it to be that highly advanced in terms of available computing power. However, it was one of the very first smartphones that incorporated a touchscreen as the main user interface.

The reason it was considered better than its competitors was due to its ability to respond to multi-touch gestures and the web browser was also considered to be the best phone based browser on the market.

The second generation iPhone was launched in summer 2008, with several improvements over the original model. The major breakthrough was 3G connectivity which added a whole new world of functionality. 3G was the step forward that made web browsing on a smartphone a real joy rather than a frustrating exercise, waiting for a page to download.

The Apple App Store appeared at the same time along with many exciting apps many of which could be downloaded for free. So popular is the App Store that since its launch there have been well over 10 billion downloads.

A year after the second generation iPhone came the third generation, which was known as the iPhone 3GS. This had improved functionality and a faster processor and an improved camera. The current iPhone generation was launched towards the latter part of 2010 with many significantly improved features and in particular a rear facing camera that can be used for video chat. Screen resolution was also vastly improved.

Each new model came with an improved version of the Apple operating system which is now called the iOS. Its original design was loosely based on the Darwin module of the Apple Mac OSX. The iPhone also incorporates iTunes, which operates as an iPhone content manager.

Although the iPhone 4 may no longer be the leading smartphone in terms of technology, it remains as the leading one in terms of style.