Apple announces iPhone, but fails to realize name is only 33 percent accurate

The Apple iPhone is about to do for the consumer world what the Blackberry and Treo did for the professional world. Earlier today at MacWorld 2007, Apple announced this new device, which combines a widescreen, touchscreen iPod, a cellphone, and an Internet-communications device. Apple has dubbed the phone, which runs OSX, to be the smartest of all phones.
The Zune-killer consists of a 3.5-inch high-res multi-input touchscreen. Translation: It can recognize more than one finger touching it at a time, which allows for a whole new array of touch-based gestures to operate the device. It is roughly a half-inch thick and has just one button. Also featured on the phone are wi-fi and Bluetooth technologies, a two-megapixel camera, quad-band GSM, plus EDGE high-speed data transfer for the phone.

What does this mean for you audiophiles out there? Well, for starters, there's no need to lug around your iPod, phone/PDA/PDA phone, and camera anymore. Apple has further consolidated the devices, and for the time being it appears that little has been sacrificed in the way of features.
All music functions will be controlled via the touchscreen and should maintain the same functionality as previous iPods when it comes to file organization. Non-music-related features include video playback, Safari Web browser, iMap and pop-based e-mail client, Google maps integration, and support for widgets.
On the downside, the phone won't be available until June and memory is limited to four or eight gigabytes at the price of $499 and $599. This is after a two-year commitment with exclusive carrier Cingular. Ouch.
As for the rest of the keynote address:
* Apple also announced Apple TV, which wirelessly streams music, photos, TV shows, movies, and other video from your computer to your TV. RCA, Component, and HDMI support are all included. This will be available in February for $299. Again, ouch.
* Steve Jobs, being the model of subversiveness that he is, used his new iPhone to order four thousand lattes from a nearby Starbucks. . .and then quickly hung up. He later invited John Mayer to come out and play a few hip tunes. Word from the floor is that all hipsters at Macworld expecting Jobs to announce the MacBook equivalent of PBR simultaneously suffered nervous breakdowns at the sight of Mayer. (This is all unconfirmed, but it would make sense. That's a lot of disappointment for one day.)
Lastly, feast your eyes on a few photos from the conference (Courtesy of Macrumors.com). . .

The beauty of big memory, of course, is that you can follow your whims a bit more in terms of what you want to listen to. Five hundred songs just isn't that much, unless you manage your playlist and can anticipate your mood, et cetera. (But, like I said, I'm probably going to get the Shuffle or the 2G Nano next.)Update: Cisco filed suit against Apple over the iPhone trademark to prevent Apple from using the name. Apparently, talks between the two companies didn't go as smoothly as Apple had hoped. Here's the Marketwatch story: By Ruth MantellCisco Systems Inc. late Wednesday said it has filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Apple Inc. seeking to prevent Apple from using the iPhone trademark. Cisco said it obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 after acquiring Infogear. Cisco said Infogear's original filing for the trademark was on March 20, 1996. "There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission," said Mark Chandler, Cisco's senior vice president and general counsel, in a statement.