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.

[Izzy Dunne]

The price is $499 - 4GB and $599 for 8GB

[The KG9 Kid]

Still sold.

[Spiff]

The specs sound truly awesome!! I'm not a big Apple fan, but the power this phone/communicator device is capable of is mind blowing. Most of today's phones have quite a bit of power that is so tightly controlled by the provider as to cripple them. Hopefully, with Apple entering the fray with a powerful (and damned sexy) device they can liberate the entire cell phone market to more powerful devices that let the users control the content on the device and it doesn't all have to come through their cell provider.

[July 4th]

There is no reason Cingular needs to be a gate keeper on your property.

True, but on some phones Cingular has been known to disable functions in the firmware that don't become active after unlock.

GSM release is obvious, however. Apple can sell these things to the world. Nevermind that Verizon is the major and more reliable carrier in many markets.

[Terpfen]

I realize that. I'm just saying, there are ways to get around the Cingular exclusivity that don't involve waiting a few months.

[antiRepublicrat]

I like the Bluetooth headset. The ones I see around are quite ugly sci-fi looking things.

[af_vet_rr]

8GB $599, 4GB $499.

Not bad at all. Factor in the cost of an iPod, and the cost of Smartphones these days (especially the high-end smartphones which don't even touch the iPhone in features) and you are looking at a cheap price. I don't know how they are doing it, but it's amazing.

[longtermmemmory]

unlock and use it on any GSM system.

no biggie.

I am acutally hoping they will finally put the pocket PC in such a small form factor.

Quite frankly I like being able to swap out SD chips as needed for whatever I am doing. (music work etc)

[Spiff]

With Phone, video, music, internet, email, etc...I believe they will have another winner, leveraging on the success of their iPod. BTW, I have a 30gb Video iPod and love it. ...and I am (as far as home computers go) a died in the wool Microsoft, Dell user. Have a beefed up XPS 600, XPS 400, a couple of beefed up Dimension 300s, etc.

You and me both, man.

I'm all Microsoft, Dell, and Toshiba at home (Dell desktops, Toshiba notebooks). I do dual boot Linux from time to time or use Linux with a bootable CD distro or from VMWare. Used to own a Mac, but not anymore.

The iPhone's specs are truly mind-blowing. I can't wait to get one in about a year and a half (when my contract is up with my current provider)

[GretchenM]

[BunnySlippers]

Thank you. I just noticed! :)

[jdm]

Yeah, but still easily cleaning Apple's clock.

[null and void]

We have Steve Job's phone number???

[Jeff Head]

I have the 30gb iPod. Have 7 full length movies on it, probably 50 of my own home videos taken with my Kodak digital, have a full season of 24 (season 5), the iPod download of the Fiesta Bowl, and also have over 600 songs with over 2 days of music...and still have 14 gb left! I think they will need a 20-30 gb version of this baby too. But the price right now at $600 for 8 gb seems too high for me.

[GretchenM]

Fake or not I cannot say but the source link has more phone numbers on the iPhone.

[Mr. Blonde]

An 8GB Nano is 250 I believe. And a Blackberry is 500 alone without a deal on it. Seems like a hell of a deal to me.

[af_vet_rr]

Apple just changed their name to Apple, Inc. instead of Apple Computers.

Wow, they are making some big waves - this is not something that's done lightly. The took on the mobile music player industry, now they are taking on the phone industry (and in a way, they had to - most phones coming out have some kind of MP3 functionality these days).

[Jeff Head]

I have found iTunes to work extremely well on my computers. So well that I do not even use MediaPlayer any more. It burns exceptionally good music CDs too.

I love my XPS 600...it's a real screamer. Running NVidia GForce 7900 GS...soon to be dual 7900 GSs. The dual core processing combined with the graphics and the memory and RAID HDDs are all a real screamer for everything I do. From CAD work to Video editing, to lots of music to (dare I say it) gaming...hehehe.

Son has a XPS 400 and we are networked together with three other machines and those teenage boys are our war crying, WOWing and basically learning great small team tactics and comm very well thank you...not to mention keeping them off the street.

Anyhow, I will ultimately own one of these...but probably not on Cingular. Just have to wait and see who else they come out with it on over the next year or two.

[js1138]

Price and delivery date unannounced.

The "announced" price of cell phones always assumes a two year contract. Except for some online vendors selling unlocked phones, I've never seen the retail price of a phone advertised.

[Spiff]

I have the 30gb iPod. Have 7 full length movies on it, probably 50 of my own home videos taken with my Kodak digital, have a full season of 24 (season 5), the iPod download of the Fiesta Bowl, and also have over 600 songs with over 2 days of music...and still have 14 gb left! I think they will need a 20-30 gb version of this baby too. But the price right now at $600 for 8 gb seems too high for me.

Then you need these. I got a pair for Christmas to use with my DVD player and other video devices. It has a plug to directly connect to a Video iPod.

The picture quality isn't all that great, but definitely good enough. It simulates a 50in. screen about 5 feet in front of you. Li-ion rechargeable - good for about 4-6 hours of viewing. You do trade full immersion for portability though. They are thin, light, and foldable but when you're watching a movie they don't cover your field of vision enough and outside movement/light/etc. can be distracting. On the plus side of that downside is that I can use them on my treadmill as I have complete vision just by looking down. I can see the treadmill and even the controls when I'm wearing these normally.