Apple introduces iPhone

Engadget ^ | Jan 9, 2007 | Chris Ziegler

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Capping literally years of speculation on perhaps the most intensely followed unconfirmed product in Apple's history -- and that's saying a lot -- the iPhone has been announced today in collaboration with Cingular. Yeah, we said it: "iPhone," the name the entire free world had all but unanimously christened it from the time it'd been nothing more than a twinkle in Stevie J's eye (comments, Cisco?). Sweet, glorious specs of the 11.6 millimeter device (that's frickin' thin, by the way) include a 3.5-inch wide touchscreen display with multi-touch support, 2 megapixel cam, 8 GB of storage, Bluetooth with EDR, WiFi, and quadband GSM radio with EDGE -- and amazingly, it somehow runs OS X.

[ReignOfError]

This is more about packaging and presentation than any emerging technology. Nothing wrong with that but some of us have had these features in our phones for months if not years.

Apple's not really about introducing new buzzwords -- the iPod wasn't the first MP3 player, or even the first with a hard drive. It was just better. The iPhone combines Bluetooth and Wifi on a bigger screen with a larger storage capacity in a smaller package than its competitors -- the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It's not just packaging, it's engineering elegance.

[ReignOfError]

Full web pages with graphics? Which phones?

The Treo 300 was able to load any compliant HTML page with full graphics. Just about any Palm or Windows Mobile smartphone can manage it. It's not fast and it's a tiny screen, so it's far from ideal, but I don't think a 320-pixel screen will be ideal either. Nicer, but no replacement for a laptop.

[Izzy Dunne]

Yeah, my comment was based on a live transcript, which described it as "finding itself", and "it knows where you are".

I'm guessing the correspondent was a bit over-enthusiastic.

[Terpfen]

Found something out. If you buy the iPhone from Apple, it'll by default be unlocked. Then you can just head over to whichever carrier you use and sign up. Though T-Mobile might be the only other carrier you can head to, given the network they use.

[ReignOfError]

Found something out. If you buy the iPhone from Apple, it'll by default be unlocked. Then you can just head over to whichever carrier you use and sign up.

Only if you're willing to pay twice or find a way out of your Cingular contract.

[Terpfen]

Buying the phone from Apple does not include a Cingular contract.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

I think the size is going to do a lot less to hinder widespread acceptance than the $600 price tag.

I'd expect the price to drop pretty quickly - remember the Motorola RAZR was priced around $500 when it came out and it's now one of those phones you mentioned that providers give away for free. While the iPhone might never be free, if it actually does succeed as a phone it'll be on Amazon for $99.95 with rebate and 2 yr contract by this time next year. I stick with my prediction about the size limiting sales to phone customers, however.

[ReignOfError]

Ah. I though it would be impossible to buy the gizmo without the contract. Of course, no one can buy it for months, so que sera sera. It's pretty well stuck with GSM, though, I think; while they're flying off the shelf, I don't see much chance of a CDMA version.

[ReignOfError]

I stick with my prediction about the size limiting sales to phone customers, however.<.I>

And I think that by the time Apple can make more than it can sell, it'll have a smaller version available. Imagine that you have an iPhone in one hand and an iPod in the other. Compare and contrast. Then imagine an iPod Nano in one hand and a little flip-phone iPhone Nano in the other. I suspect it'll go like that.

And a couple of years after that, they'll introduce the iPhone Shuffle, which will fit in your left nostril, provide crystal-clear calls, and cost about a buck and a quarter, but with no control over whom you're talking to.