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

January 9, 2007 1:14 p.m. by Adrian Covert

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). . .


Posted in: IPHONE , IPOD , JOHN MAYER , MACWORLD 2007 , MUSIC TECH
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13 Responses

January 9, 2007 at 3:23 p.m.

Some guys at one of the Microsoft booths were looking at press coverage on the Apple phone. Actually, it was the Microsoft Mobile Live demo booth, if I remember right, which is all kinds of ironic.I'll be at MacWorld tomorrow, don't know if they'll have demo units or how mobbed they would be ... looks nice though.Edge sucks. For that much money it should have at least UMTS or the 3G HSDPA standard ... like my shiny new Blackjack!
January 9, 2007 at 3:31 p.m.

Bout time this puppy was announced.I want this thing badly.Looks pretty awesome and if it's as functional as most Apple products I will become an Apple fanboy.
January 9, 2007 at 4:37 p.m.

you dont even own any apple products dp. thats a prerequisite for being a fanboy.
January 9, 2007 at 4:51 p.m.

It looks gigantic, but I've never seen my own hand holding my Q. The interactive presentation at apple.com/iphone makes it look worth the price, although I'm not all that interested in Cingular's service. Do they talk about battery life? Will they put out a phone with non-Nano-size memory?
January 9, 2007 at 5:18 p.m.

there is a picture of someone holding it, and it looks smaller than a treo. much smaller. i should have mentioned the battery life too. its 5 hours talk time on the phone and 16 hours if youre only using the ipod features. as for a non nano sized harddrive, i really doubt they would do that. its definitely a cheaper option, but moving parts cuttdown on battery life and are more likely to fail. Harddrive based mp3 players are starting to become unfashionable, and when youre combining it with a phone and camera, people are not going to want to send in their phone to have a faulty harddrive fixed. so my guess is no.
January 9, 2007 at 7:40 p.m.

I think it looks longer than and at least as wide as the Q--not sure about the Treo. I'm excited for it though.
January 9, 2007 at 9:57 p.m.

i bet this thing looks great in person. But it's not a smartphone?
January 9, 2007 at 10:30 p.m.

well i mean it runs osx, so its pretty damn smart, but it doesnt run windows ce or any of that trash.
January 9, 2007 at 11:38 p.m.

Not a smartphone - at least according to Engadget, it can't install third-party apps, which some people say is the definition of a smartphone. Whatever, it's a smartphone or it's a smart phone, I'll ask about it tomorrow.I kind of regret signing on with Cingular now - every hipster and Apple freak in San Francisco is going to get one of these and kill Cingular's service. And I still think it's silly that it has such a beautiful screen for web browsing and no third generation cell data support, even though it has WiFi support.
January 10, 2007 at 10:04 a.m.

That makes sense about the memory size, Adrian. I'm just not sure it would "replace" my iPod altogether (although I am actually thinking about paring down and going with the Shuffle). The battery life sounds okay--far better than my Q. I love the touch-screen navigation as well.
January 10, 2007 at 10:39 a.m.

I'm not a fan of hard drive based MP3 players. They break way too often and easily. I'd much rather have even a 2GB flash MP3 player than a 40GB hard drive MP3 player.
January 10, 2007 at 11:39 a.m.

daba is a windows loving luddite
January 10, 2007 at 4:10 p.m.

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.

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