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Macworld Meets Expectations, and Then Some

Two new products are announced, but the touch-screen iPhone steals the show.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

By Kate Greene

The Apple iPhone (above) debuted today at Macworld.
Credit: Apple

At Macworld today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced two new products: Apple TV, a set-top box that allows media from your computer to stream wirelessly to a TV, and the iPhone, a gadget that seamlessly melds iPod with smart phone. While both products were the subject of speculation and rumor long before Macworld, it was the iPhone that enraptured the crowd and inspired a standing ovation at the end of the show.

The new iPhone is a sleek media-playing device, thinner than any other smart phone available. But it looks like neither an iPod nor a phone: the screen takes up most of the front of the iPhone, and there is only a single small button at the bottom. No keypad. No scroll pad. Instead, Apple opted for a touch-screen interface that's designed for fingers, not for a stylus. Using the touch screen, the controls that you'd expect with an iPod, phone, or Web browser appear when you need them and disappear when you don't. Want to send a text message or an e-mail? A keypad shows up. Want to watch a movie? The video fills the entire screen (for a wide-screen view). If you need to adjust the volume, just tap the screen, and the controls appear. And when you put the phone to your ear, the display turns off, thanks to an onboard sensor that detects when your face is close.

The touch screen is at its best when used for scrolling. With a flick of the finger on the screen, the user can scroll through the thousands of songs, pictures, movies, television shows, and e-mails that the iPhone can hold. A distinctive tap selects the song of interest. In addition, the screen is responsive to two fingers: the iPhone supports a sort of pinching function that allows you to zoom in on pictures, Web pages, and Google Maps. (Google partnered with Apple to provide a specialized version of Google Maps for the iPhone.)

The features roundup:

- Wide-screen video iPod
- Integration with iTunes
- OS X operating system
- Automatic syncing with Mac applications such as iCal and Address Book
- Touch screen
- Visual voice mail that allows you to see and listen to specific voice mails
- Conference calls
- GSM and Edge network support
- Two-megapixel camera
- Wi-Fi
- Bluetooth 2.0
- Fully functional Safari Web browser
- Yahoo Mail
- Google Maps
- Widgets
- Four-gigabyte and eight-gigabyte versions
- Five hours of battery life for continuous talk/video/Web browsing
- Sixteen hours of battery life for audio play
- Predictive text software

There are more features, of course, and they can be found on the Apple iPhone site. Although Jobs announced the phone today, it won't ship until June. At that time, the low-end version will run you $499, and the high-end will cost $599.

Tags: apple, iPhone, macworld

Comments

	Get over yourselves... gabrielg01 on 01/09/2007 at 11:19 PM
Posts: 317 Avg Rating:	So much hoopla for nothing!... If you're a tech person you know that phones with such features have been around for years. My 3 year old phone matches this mac-phone, spec for spec - with 2 exceptions a) the camera is only 1.3mpixel and b) the storage is SD card based. But if you look at the latest generation phones around, you'll see that all the hoopla around this mac-phone is unwarranted. Rate this comment: (Reply)

	Re: Get over yourselves... wbdeville on 01/10/2007 at 4:00 AM
Posts: 10 Avg Rating:	I quite disagree with gabrielg01. I've got a Treo 650, which is still among the more sophisticated of the current smart phones. By comparison, the interface and operating details of the iPhone make the Treo seem Stone Age. On the Trio, for example, I've come to dread the task of reviewing voice mail messages. The iPhone presents voicemail so that I can deal with it efficiently. Does that feel revolutionary? Darn right. I pay for Internet access service on the Treo, but it's difficult and clumsy to get to an information source, and primitive by comparison to a Web browser on a computer. The iPhone is genuinely revolutionary. Perhaps not in the sense that it does things that can't be done or at least approximated in current mobile phones, but because it does them right. Apple's strength is in paying attention to the details and polish of procedures so that they can be done more quickly, pleasantly and efficiently. Having watched the demos of the iPhone, my attitude is that I will no longer put up with the clunky, poorly engineered (from the human user viewpoint) mobile phones I've been using. My Treo will be gone as soon as I can get an iPhone. Question: If Apple came up with the iPhone in only two and a half years, why haven't others had the vision to see what could be done to make mobile phones better? Rate this comment: (Reply)

	Re: Get over yourselves... gabrielg01 on 01/10/2007 at 7:15 PM
Posts: 317 Avg Rating:	I'd say hang on to your Treo for a while, because it has real buttons. Although the iPhone has probably the biggest screen of all current phones, the touch-screen will be an issue when typing emails and text messages. Thank god my phone (T-mobile MDA, similar to Cingular 8525) also has real buttons, because using only its touch-screen makes life very hard. Check it out: http://reviews.cnet.com/Cingular_8525/4505-6452_7-32133413.html Texting on a touch-screen is close to impossible, unless one uses a stylus. So, I'm very curious about texting on the iPhone - I've heard they "borrowed" the Origami concept from Microsoft. Rate this comment: (Reply)

	Camera corporatedave on 01/10/2007 at 1:00 PM
Posts: 11 Avg Rating:	2 GIGAPIXEL?! You mean Megapixel. Rate this comment: (Reply)

	Re: Camera Kate Greene on 01/10/2007 at 4:08 PM		TR Staff Information Technology Editor
Posts: 10 Avg Rating:	Yes! It should be "2-megapixel." Apple's not reinventing the camera, afterall. Thanks for the catch! Rate this comment: (Reply)

	For the curious gabrielg01 on 01/11/2007 at 7:13 PM
Posts: 317 Avg Rating:	Here is a YouYube presentation of this iPhone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgW7or1TuFk&eurl= But this story will also tell you why the iPhone is not quite revolutionary: http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-japanphone11jan11,0,6424968.story?coll=la-home-headlines Rate this comment: (Reply)