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Apple iPhone Wows MacWorld Audience

By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com

January 10, 2007

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While the technology world's attention was focused on the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, Apple's Steve Jobs laid claim to "revolutionizing" mobile phones. Some of his acolytes went ever farther and credited Jobs with "reinventing the telephone."

At MacWorld in San Francisco, Jobs introduced iPhone, combining a mobile phone, widescreen iPod with touch controls, and an Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, searching and maps into one small and lightweight handheld device.

iPhone uses a new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and newly developed software, letting users control iPhone with just their fingers. As Apple is known to do, the company's new product offers a lot of power and sophistication in an attractive, easy to operate package. Jobs doesn't even try to control his enthusiasm for his new product, declaring the iPhone completely redefines what users can do on their mobile phones.

"iPhone is a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone," said Jobs, with his usual modesty and understatement. "We are all born with the ultimate pointing device -- our fingers -- and iPhone uses them to create the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse."

In case you're counting, he used the word "revolutionary" twice in one quote. It's obvious that Apple thinks it has a winner with iPhone and many in the industry don't dispute that.

"The Apple iPhone is undoubtedly a breakthrough device," declared informitv.com, a technology Web site. "The iPhone may provide a significant improvement over today's amped-up cell phones," chimed in PC World.

Users make calls on the iPhone by simply pointing at a name or number. iPhone syncs all of the user's contacts from their PC, Mac or Internet service such as Yahoo!, so that it always has a full list of up-to-date contacts. In addition, users can easily construct a favorites list for most frequently made calls, and easily merge calls together to create conference calls.

When users need to type, iPhone presents them with a touch keyboard which is predictive to prevent and correct mistakes. iPhone also includes a calendar application that allows calendars to be automatically synced with a PC or Mac.

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iPhone features a 2 megapixel camera and a photo management application that Apple claims is far beyond anything on a phone today. Users can browse their photo library, which can be easily synced from their PC or Mac, with just a flick of a finger and easily choose a photo for their wallpaper or to include in an email.

iPhone will make calls using the Congular Wireless network. The phones will also feature EDGE and Wi-Fi wireless technologies for data networking.

iPhone is also a widescreen iPod with touch controls that lets music lovers "touch" their music by easily scrolling through entire lists of songs, artists, albums and playlists using a finger. Album artwork is reproduced on iPhone's display screen.

The 3.5-inch widescreen display allows users to watch TV shows and movies on a pocketable device, with touch controls for play-pause, chapter forward-backward and volume. iPhone plays the same videos purchased from the online iTunes Store that users now watch on their computers and iPods.

iPhone will be available in the US in June 2007, Europe in late 2007, and Asia in 2008, in a 4GB model for $499 and an 8GB model for $599, and will work with either a PC or Mac. iPhone will be sold in the US through Apple's retail and online stores, and through Cingular's retail and online stores. Several iPhone accessories will also be available in June, including Apple's new remarkably compact Bluetooth headset.

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