First Look:

Apple “reinvents” the phone (if you say so, Steve)

By Bernard Cole
iApplianceWeb
(01/09/07, 1:54 PM GMT)

San Francisco, Ca. – Joining other companies who are rushing to build the feature-laden handheld “everything machines,” they think consumers want, Apple CEO Steve Jobs spoke in overblown hyperbole to attendees at MacWorld here, announcing his company’s much anticipated iPhone.

The company, he claims, has “reinvented the phone.”

Building on the Jobs’ well-honed ability to take pre-existing concepts and put them into well-thought out, innovative, and even breakthrough packaging and convince potential buyers that they indeed have something unique in hand, Apple took the wraps off the iPhone.

Touted by Jobs as the all-in-one handheld successor to the iPod, the iPhone incorporates a widescreen LCD of unique design, a mobile phone and Internet connectivity. The iPhone, which is 11.6 millimeters thick, will also have a 2 megapixel camera built into the back of it.

It  incorporates a new user interface that Jobs calls a “multi-touch display.” Like several other all-in-one mobile phone/ camera/Internet combos now on the market, the 3.5 inch 160 pixels per inch touch-sensitive screen runs the length of the device.

Like several other similar devices on the market, the Apple eschewed a keyboard in the iPhone and opted for a touch-sensitive LCD screen interface. What makes it different is that the onscreen keypad appears anytime it is needed and disappears when it is not.

Users will be able to scroll through all of the capabilities such all-in-one handheld appliances typically incorporate: contact lists, music lists, or movie lists with a swipe of the finger.

Using the same motion-based cues incorporated into a number of other handheld devices, pictures on the iPhone can enlarged by making a backwards pinching motion across the screen.

 Similarly, the unit responds to motion cues and when a user wants to view a horizontal picture in its entirety, all that is necessary is to turn the device on its side, with the picture appearing in the landscape mode.

For an operating system, rather than use a small footprint mobile or embedded OS, Apple has taken a cue from Microsoft and come up with a mobile handheld version of its Linux/Unix-derived Mac OS, along with the Safari Web browser.

Similar to what Microsoft has done with its Windows CE-derived Smartphone mobile OS, Apple is not skimping, and trying to cram in all of the capabilities that users have gotten used to on the desktop version of the Mac OS: multi-tasking abilities, security, graphics, animation, audio, and video.

Like many other mobile phones and handheld computers, the iPhone will auto-synch to a PC or Mac and users can manage their rosters of movies, music, contacts, calendars, notes, and bookmarks from iTunes. Similar to what is already currently available on competitive devices, users can set up their lists in iTunes and then synch it down to the iPhone.

Unlike either the Mac or the iPod, where Apple maintain complete control over every service and feature incorporated into the hardware and the software, on the iPhone Apple has decided not to become a wireless provider, and is working with Cingular as the carrier.

A 4-Gbyte version of the iPhone will sell for $499, and an 8-Gbyte version will sell for $599. It will ship in the U.S. in June and in Europe in the fourth calendar quarter of this year. It will ship in Asia in 2008. It will be sold in Apple and Cingular stores, and, of course, online.

To learn more, go to www.apple.com.

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