New, thinner iPhone with clearer screen comes out June 24

SAN FRANCISCO -- The next iPhone comes out June 24 and will have a higher-resolution screen, longer battery life and thinner design.

CEO Steve Jobs opened Apple Inc.'s annual conference for software developers Monday by revealing the iPhone 4, which will cost $199 or $299 in the U.S. with a two-year AT&T contract, depending on the capacity. The iPhone 3GS, which debuted last year, will still be available, for $99.

The iPhone 4 is about three-eighths of an inch thick; the previous iPhone was nearly half an inch. It is getting a camera on the front that could be used for videoconferencing, in addition to a five-megapixel camera and a flash on the back. It can shoot high-definition video, catching up to some other smart phones.

The display on the new iPhone remains 3.5 inches diagonally, but Jobs said it can show four times as many pixels -- the individual colored dots that make up an image -- as the previous screen.

The new phone will run the latest version of Apple's mobile software, now called iOS4, which Apple unveiled in April to offer such new features as the ability to operate more than one program at a time. Older iPhones will be able to get iOS4 as a download June 21.

New applications for the device will include the popular game Farmville and one from Netflix that lets people watch streaming video where they left off on a PC.