Although we were expecting the announcement of the iPhone 4 during Steve Jobs’ keynote at WWDC 2010 on Monday, we were still blown away by Apple’s latest addition to the iPhone family.

The new iPhone 4 has several amazing new features:

• Video calling.  Apple calls it “FaceTime” and it works iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 over Wi-Fi. The iPhone 4 has 2 cameras — one on the front that focuses on you, and one on the back that focuses on everything else.
• HD Video Recording and Editing. You no longer need to carry your Flip HD and a phone.  With the iMovie app, you can edit your footage and make movies on your iPhone 4.
• 5-Megapixel Camera with LED Flash. The camera on the back of the iPhone 4 is 5-megapixel, and there’s also a built-in LED flash that automatically fires when needed. The VGA-quality front facing camera is great for self-portraits.
• Multitasking. You can run third-party apps and switch back and forth between them without running down your battery or slowing the performance of the apps.

There are loads more features to the iPhone 4, including the beautiful 960-by-640 resolution Retina display, which looks incredibly sharp and vibrant. You can check out all the new tech specs for the iPhone 4 here.

Current iPhone owners can check out the status of your iPhone 4 upgrade eligibility by dialing *639# on your iPhone. AT&T will text you back to let you know if you are eligible for the full upgrade price ($199 for the 16GB and $299 for the 32GB) or on what date you’ll be eligible in the future.

For those of you who are ready to buy an iPhone for the first time, you can reserve your iPhone 4 starting June 15. More details here.

iPhone OS 4 is arriving sometime this summer!  The major new iPhone OS features and improvements are:

• Multitasking (only available with iPhone 3GS and third-generation iPod touch 32GB and 64GB models from late 2009)
• Folders – organize your apps
• iBooks – read books on your iPhone
• Enhanced Mail – unified inbox, switch between inboxes more quickly, organize messages by threads, and the ability to open attachments in third-party apps

Other exciting new features and improvements include:

• Spell check
• Bluetooth keyboard support
• User-defined wallpaper
• Tap to focus when recording video and a 5x digital zoom for the camera
• Playlist creation and nested playlists
• Game Center — an official social gaming network for the iPhone

You can catch the official Apple keynote on the new iPhone OS 4 here.

The Apple “tablet” that has been the subject of much speculation over the past year made its debut last week.

Advertised as “the best way to experience the web, email, photos, and video,” the iPad features a 9.7 inch Multi-Touch display, and is only 0.5 inch thin.  With a weigh of only 1.5 pounds, the iPad is incredibly portable.

As of last week, the iPad can run almost 140,000 of the apps on the App Store — even the ones that you’ve already downloaded on your iPhone and iPod touch.  A new app to the iPad is iBooks, which allows users to read and buy books from the built-in iBookstore.

The iPad is reasonably priced, with models starting at $499 for the 16GB + Wi-Fi and topping out at $829 for the 64GB + Wi-Fi + 3G.  The Wi-Fi only models ship in March, with the 3G models following in April.

Engadget published a good hands-on evaluation of the iPad, with the pluses (beautiful screen, super fast CPU, great eBook reading experience) and the minuses (no multi-tasking, no camera and no Adobe Flash).  For all the technical specs and the promo video, visit Apple’s website.

Don’t be a scrooge, try out some fun holiday apps.  We’ve collected a few here and they’re all free, so you don’t have to worry about dipping into your Xmas fund:

Mixology: Drink Recipes – a good collection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks to get you through the holiday season

Slacker Holiday Radio – Unlimited free holiday tunes from 11 different holiday radio stations.  Everything from classic holiday songs to contemporary anti-holiday tunes can be found here.

Elf Command – Rush hour in Santa’s workshop!  Help the robot elves sort the presents to take to good boys and girls.  Fun for kids (some adults might like it too).

Do Not Press The Red Button – Christmas Edition! – Just get it.  It will make you laugh at least once.  We promise.

Dr. Seuss Camera – The Grinch Edition – OK.  So this one isn’t free, but it’s a lot of fun.  You can take a photo of yourself and then put your face on the Grinch’s body and send a “Grinchmas Card.”  You don’t have to be a Grinch if you don’t want, though.  You can also choose from other Dr. Seuss characters like Cindy-Lou Who and the Grinch’s dog, Max.

We’ve had complaints (and have made gripes of our own) about the weak life of the iPhone 3G battery.  The 3GS battery is better, but only slightly better.  What about the original iPhone battery you ask?  Well, some of our users swear that they never had the problems with their pre-3G phone’s battery that they do with their new and supposedly superior 3G or 3GS battery (one of the chief complaints is that the 3G battery dies overnight).  But there are many users out there that think the 3G and 3GS batteries are much improved.

Apple’s website provides a number of useful tips on how to conserve the power of your iPhone’s battery.  Most of it comes down to disabling certain services and features on your iPhone and only using them when necessary:

• Turn off location services and use only when needed.
• Turn off push notifications.
• Fetch new data manually.
• Turn off push mail and use only when needed.
• Auto-check fewer email accounts.
• Minimize use of third-party applications.
• Turn off Wi-Fi and use only when needed.
• Turn off Bluetooth unless you’re using a Bluetooth headset or car kit.
• Use Airplane Mode in low- or no-coverage areas.
• Set Brightness to Auto Brightness.
• Turn off EQ in the settings for iPod.

Also keeping your iPhone locked while not in use will help conserve the life of the battery.  Set the auto-lock to 1 minute by going to Settings > General > Auto-Lock and selecting 1 Minute.

Just a note to our clients and readers that use the free version of Dropbox (in case you didn’t get or read the email that came from Dropbox) that the “undo history” feature is going to change as of August 1st.  The new policy will be to keep 30 days of undo history.  If you want to continue to have unlimited undo history, then you have to upgrade to one of the paid accounts.

Also!  Dropbox is releasing a free iPhone App soon that will let you to access your files from your phone.

Just a friendly reminder to all of our clients, readers and friends with iPhones that the iPhone 3.0 Software Update is available tomorrow, June 17, 2009.

There have been a few helpful instructional videos posted by developers over the past few days.  I’m including one here that is fairly lengthy, but includes overviews of the following new features:

• Internet Tethering (not currently available in the U.S.)
• MMS Messaging (not available with AT&T until later in the summer)
• Landscape Keyboard
• Cut/Copy/Paste
• Voice Memos
• Universal Search – Spotlight
• MobileMe Find My iPhone and Remote Wipe

Lots of exciting news announced at the 2009 WWDC today!  Some of the biggest highlights from the conference:

iPhone News

• New iPhone 3GS will be available on June 19th.  Only major improvements seem to be better battery life and faster processor.  Our techs were wishing for 802.11n on the new iPhone, but alas, no.
• A more affordable iPhone!  The current 8GB iPhone 3G is now $99!
• iPhone OS 3.0 will be available free to all iPhone users on June 17th.  Has several new features and improvements on existing features.
• Incredibly useful service “Find My iPhone” will be available to MobileMe customers.  Users can login to MobileMe from any browser and locate their iPhone on a Google Map.  Great theft deterrent!
• Lost or stolen iPhones can be wiped clean of all data with a remote command.  If the iPhone is found, the data can be restored from a backup.

Apple Notebook News

• MacBook Air is reduced in price and given faster processors.  The new 1.86GHz is now $1,499 and the new 2.13GHz is $1,799.
• The 13″ aluminum MacBook is now part of the MacBook Pro line.  It now has a FireWire 800 port AND an SD card slot.  The new 15″ MacBook Pro also has the SD card slot, but the 17″ MacBook Pro is keeping the ExpressCard/34 slot.
• Prices on the entry level MacBook Pro models have been reduced by $300!

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard News

• Among the improvements and additions, Snow Leopard will have faster Time Machine backups, better iChat and Microsoft Exchange server support.
• Snow Leopard will launch at some point in September and will be reasonably priced at $29 for current OS X 10.5 Leopard users.  The regular price for Snow Leopard will be $129.
• Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard is also scheduled for release in September and will be $499 for an unlimited license.  It appears there will be no 10 user license option anymore.

Safari News

• Safari 4 is no longer in beta!  Download the fastest browser from Apple’s site today!

For additional information or if you want to view Apple’s WWDC 2009 Keynote Address, click here.

Mactracker is a fantastic freeware application (big thanks to its creator Ian Page).  It’s a database that contains information about every Macintosh computer ever produced.  It also provides a “Notes” section, where you can keep information regarding a specific model or about your own machine.

Now Mactracker is available as an iPhone app, which is perfect for users who want a quick reference guide to all Apple hardware (and also a very useful tool for our on-site Mac support techs).

Skype has finally made it to the iPhone.  You do have to be in a Wi-Fi zone to use it, but the call quality is fantastic.

Skype also offers a monthly subscription service as well as a service called Pay As You Go, which allows you to call landlines and mobiles at a very low cost per minute.  International calls with the Pay As You Go credit start at around two cents per minute.