Big news today at Macworld. After years of anticipation, speculation, and rumors, Apple has announced the iPhone! Here are some of the features:
- 11.6 mm (thickness)
- 3.5 in. (width)
- Runs Mac OS X (access to Safari Web browser)
- Touchscreen display with multi-touch support
- 2 megapixel camera
- 8 GB storage
- Bluetooth with EDR and also WiFi
- Quadband GSM radio with EDGE
- EDGE or WiFi, the phone switches to WiFi when detected
- Google Maps: Satellite directions, traffic monitoring, and normal maps.
- Random access voicemail
- Widgets: Weather and stocks
- Photo album lets you scroll through images with your finger and you can zoom in/out by “squeezing” or “pinching” the screen with two fingers.
- The orientation of the screen (landscape or portrait) will automatically rotate based upon the orientation of the device itself.
One of my favorite features is the quick switching. While listening to your music using the iPod application on your iPhone, the phone rings. As the phone call comes in, the music fades out, and the screen changes allowing you to answer. While on the phone, you can even pull up photos to send in an email, and browse the web. After you end the call, the iPod continues playing where you left off. Amazing!
Also on stage with Steve Jobs was Jerry Yang of Yahoo and Eric Schmidt of Google. A big part of this iPhone is the use of some of Google’s services, like the maps for satellite directions, and traffic. Yahoo is involved by offering free push IMAP email for all of the customers.
Now for the price: The 4GB model will be $499 and the 8GB model will be $599. They’ll start shipping in June! Note: As Nate the Great mentions below, it does require a 2-year contract.
News Source: Gizmodo
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Tags: Google, Hardware, Apple, Cellphone, Downloads, iPhone, iPod, Microsoft, Screenshots
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i, for one, am heartbroken
Ive been holding off on getting an ipod for months because everyone said the widescreen ipod would be out soon.. This is no widescreen ipod. $499-$599 with a REQUIRED 2 year contract! you gotta be kidding me! This is just an overpriced phone that plays music.
Nate the Great: I don’t think that you’re out of luck. According to this site, also announced was a Widescreen IPod with touch screen controls. I haven’t found any additional information on it– but I think it was just announced a few hours ago. Don’t be heartbroken yet
It’s not so much the contract but who it’s with - Cingular, yuk! Terrible reception and overall call quality.
I don’t think you’re giving credit where credit is do. The phone runs OS X! A real operating system that can run real applications including, but not limited
too, a real web browser. Not to mention it’s a full version iPod, Contact manager, Email client, and so much more.
CoryC: I agree, there are a lot of great features with this iPhone. Seeing as this does run a real operating system, it could go beyond where current PDA’s and Pocket PC’s can go right now. All around it’s raising the bar for a lot of companies.
Now, whether or not I’m willing to pay for it is another story. And Cingular isn’t exactly who I’d want to sign my life away with for 2 years.
well, this is it. the beginning of the end.
it was just a matter of time when a single device will be able to operate as a communication device and a multimedia device. and this phone is the first to offer both.
they still need to replace the flash with either a Hard drive (like samsung i believe) or to give more flash and an expansion slot, and shove in one of those 7mp camera with big zoom that i also believe samsung is offering.
then all we need is some sort of central location to hold all our files, bookmarks and so one (some1 said google-something?) and it will b it.
the next stage will be to use some sort of a foldable screen (e-ink), which should take about 2-5 years in my opinion, and have a more robust input options - AKA true voice and hand write recognition.a fuelcell or a motion based recharger (just announced this month).
but the best thing to do is to dump that illogical combo with singular and sell this baby worldwide.
go Apple!!!
One other thing that I have been pondering is that since Apple has a full operating system on the phone, people might be more inclined to switch to a Mac if they like the ease-of-use that it offers. I have to admit that Apple really blew me away with all of the great features, but as “Jack of all Trades” said this is just the beginning of what is to come in the future. I still can’t believe a phone can do all this.
P.S. I wonder how much Cingular had to pay to get exclusivity?
To clear up one things:
1. Apple did not announce a widescreen iPod, they were talking about the iPhone.
2. Mac OSX Mini is not the full OSX, but does use the actual OSX kernel. It can not use OSX apps, or vice-versa.
A couple things I want to point out:
1. Since it can run Dashboard widgets as apps, it would be almost effortless to program your own iPhone app with some basic functionality.
2. If they could cut the price and (eventually) pick up some other networks, this could easily become the most popular phone ever.
3. The real purpose of the iPhone is to stop PDAs and phones from taking precious iPod market share.
4. In see cell phones separating into four classes: basic (those crappy flip-phones with 1-MP cameras), upscaled (RAZR-type-things, but with at least semi-decent technology), high-end consumer (iPhone, Q, Blackjack), and business (Blackberry). Upscaled and high-end consumer would be similar, but high-end would be much more smartphone-like.
I *HATE* devices with hard drives, because HDD is a mechanic device with motor, and it is eating energy VERY FAST! Flash memory is MUCH BETTER solution, because it have no mechanics, and doesn’t eat much energy, you will have to recharge this device once per week or two.
not to mention it can crash, especially in a movable device like a cell phone.
well, they can always wait for the new flash HD that Sandisk started to sell as a replacement for the laptop drive. they just need to be a bit smaller.
I just fell in love! That is one slick, sexy looking phone.
Amen to that, brother. I have fortunately been spared this horror, but I have friends with iPods where the hard drive mysteriously collapsed. Battery life is also, as you said, much better with flash memory. Case in point: an iPod has 20 hours of battery life, a nano has 24, and the iPod’s battery is much larger! Another similar case, but with optical media instead, is the PSP. My friend hacked one so that he could play PS1 games on it (off the Memory Stick) without buying them, and the battery life is twice as much as when playing games on UMDs!