Apple unveils iPhone mobile with iPod music capability, WiFi, quad-band GSM, EDGE, POP and web browsing.

Apple iPhone announced at Macworld

Steve Jobs has announced that the latest hardware release from Apple is the three-in-one iPhone.

Although one never knows with Apple, the iPhone announcement was hardly unexpected, as the rumor mills had been talking for ages that Apple was planning to release a mobile phone.

It was just the technology, features and design format of the product that everybody had been looking forward to. And Steve Job's Macworld keynote speech finally spilled the beans.

According to Apple, the iPhone combines the functionality of a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, with the added benefit of a WiFi equipped Internet communications device.

Moreover, the iPhone will run OS X, the same operating system that runs on Apple's desktop and portable computers.

The mobile phone

The interface of the device allows the user to make mobile calls by simply pointing at a name or number on the touch screen. Another feature, Visual Voicemail, allows mobile phone users to view their voicemail messages in an email-like list format, before choosing which one to listen to. No need to listen to a list of other messages first.

The iPhone interface contains a predictive full qwerty touchscreen keyboard for composing SMS messages. It also contains a two megapixel camera as well as a photo management tool. The iPhone also has the ability to sync contacts, photo libraries and calendar dates with both Macs and Windows PCs.

Widescreen iPod

The iPhone also functions as an iPod, utilizing screen-based touch controls to scroll through lists of songs and playlists. Users can also use the phone to watch TV shows and movies. The iPhone has a 3.5 inch screen which can be rotated into a landscape position for viewing video or web browsing.

The device has built-in sensors which detect when the user has rotated the phone from portrait to landscape. This then automatically changes the contents of the display accordingly.

Communications device

A portable version of the Safari web browser allows users to browse the web, search with Google and Yahoo and also sync bookmarks from their Mac or PC.

For email, the iPhone uses an HTML email client which allows for integration with most POP and IMAP email servers.

The iPhone is quad-band GSM and features EDGE and Wi-Fi wireless as well as Bluetooth and will be available in the US in June 2007, in Europe towards the end of 2007 and in Asia in 2008. It comes in two configurations, a 4GB model for US$499 and an 8GB model for US$599.

Apple

10 January 2007

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