The Apple iPhone
It’s real! The iPhone is here, and it’s a lot more than expected.
After almost a year of wild speculation about the next generation iPod and the possibility of a phone, Apple, Inc. has finally announced the real iPhone.
The new Cingular only device seems to have taken the best of both worlds. That is, the widescreen form-factor that was widely rumored to be what the next generation of iPod was going to look like seems to have been paired with a very stylish and capable phone.
In keeping with the traditional Apple minimalist design, the iPhone features a very sleek and clean looking design. On the front of the device there’s a vibrant 3.5” multi-touch screen wedged between what’s called the “Home” button on the bottom and a speaker on the top. The widescreen display features a maximum resolution of 320 by 480 pixels at 160 pixels per inch, and also doubles as the primary input device. The screen does not require a stylus to be used properly; it will ignore unintended touches, and even supports multi-fingered gestures.
The beauty about the touch screen interface is that with the help of its operating system, OS X, the phone is able to completely change the button layout from application to application. So, what might be a nice, big keypad in one application, will completely disappear as soon as it’s no longer needed, and can be replaced with something like a click-wheel in another program.
Using a simple finger gesture, you’ll be able to do everything from flipping through photos to zooming in on a particular section of a web page or photo. Need to send e-mails? No problem, with the iPhone’s predictive QWERTY keyboard, typing up e-mails, documents, and SMS text messages is as easy as ever.
The iPhone is also capable of playing music, video, sharing images, web browser, e-mailing, and a lot more. With OS X, you’ll have a true desktop experience in your hand – or so they claim. A lot of the desktop applications have been ported over to the mobile device, such as Safafi, Notes, and even some of the most popular Widgets. Other neat applications include Visual Voicemail, Address Book, and Google Maps.
As a possible iPod replacement, the iPhone will allow you to literally “touch your music,” browse through your collection faster than ever before, admire the cover art, and much more. If you elect to only play music on the iPhone, the battery should last you about 16 hours – with everything else that you might want to do on the device, a few hours seems far more realistic.
For those of you looking to completely replace your iPods, be forewarned that the iPhone currently only features a choice between 4 and 8GB of internal flash memory. On top of that, the iPhone won’t exactly be cheap either. The 4GB model will go for around $499, and the larger 8GB model should retail for about $599.
All that media capability is great….but this is still a phone, right?
Well, yeah, and as a phone, the device also comes with a lot of features. The iPhone supports three different network frequencies: 850Mhz, 900Mhz, 1800Mhz, 1900Mhz – from there the term “Quad-band.” It also fully supports Wi-Fi (802.11b & G), Cingular’s EDGE, and also fully conforms to the brand new Bluetooth 2.0 specifications. And, like any modern phone on the market, it also sports a 2.0 megapixel camera.
If you can’t wait to get your hands on this thing, I’m sorry to disappoint, but you’ll have to wait a little longer, since it won’t be available until June of this year.
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