[Mobile Monday Hyderabad] Apple Reinvents The Phone

Wed Jan 10 12:03:31 IST 2007

Apple's CEO Steve Jobs introduces the iPhone, which he says is an iPod, a 
mobile phone, and an Internet communication device

Apple is reinventing the phone, Steve Jobs told an audience of 4,000 at 
the Macworld Expo in San Francisco on Tuesday. 

After months of rumors and conjecture that have kept blogs and chat rooms 
ablaze with activity, Apple's CEO took the wraps off what he hopes will be 
the next must-have gadget -- the iPhone. 

The phone is being touted as a widescreen iPod, a mobile phone, and an 
Internet communication device all in one. Calling it a "leapfrog" product, 
Jobs says it is five years ahead of any other smartphone on the market. 

"This is a day I've been looking forward to for two and a half years. 
Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes 
everything," said Jobs, who cited the introduction of the Mac in 1984 and 
the iPod in 2001. "After today, I don't think anyone will look at these 
old smartphones the same way again." 

The iPhone touts a new user interface that Jobs called a multi-touch 
display. The screen runs the length of the device, which doesn't have a 
built-in keypad. The 3.5-inch screen will have 160 pixels per inch for a 
high resolution. 

Users will be able to scroll through contact lists, music lists, or movie 
lists with a swipe of the finger. A keypad will appear on the touch screen 
when needed, and then disappear when not needed. Pictures can be enlarged 
by making a backwards pinching motion across the screen. Want to view a 
horizontal picture in its entirety? Simply turn the device on its side and 
the picture will appear in a landscape mode. 

"The problem today is the keyboards," said Jobs. "They are there whether 
or not you want them to be there. Controls and buttons are set in plastic 
so you can't change them for each application or down the road when new 
advances come out. We are getting rid of the buttons." 

The phone, which will begin shipping in June, will run the Mac operating 
system and use the Safari Web browser. Jobs called software on other 
smartphones "baby software" and the audience of Mac fans erupted into 
applause and cheers when he announced that the iPhone will use the Mac OS. 
"It's simply got everything we need -- multi-tasking abilities, security, 
graphics, animation, audio, and video," he said. "It's a desktop-class 
application and networking." 

The device will auto-synch to a PC or Mac and users can manage their 
rosters of movies, music, contacts, calendars, notes, and bookmarks from 
iTunes. Uses can set up their lists in iTunes and then synch it down to 
the iPhone. 

The iPhone, which is only 11.6 millimeters thick, will have a 2 megapixel 
camera built into the back of it. Cingular is set up to be the exclusive 
carrier. 

A 4-Gbyte version of the iPhone will sell for $499, and an 8-Gbyte version 
will sell for $599. It will ship in the U.S. in June and in Europe in the 
fourth calendar quarter of this year. It will ship in Asia in 2008. It 
will be sold in Apple and Cingular stores. 

Here are some iPhone features: 

iPod features 

The iPhone will have a built-in speaker, as well as a headphone jack. 
Turn it on its side and the picture turns into a landscape mode. This 
works for digital photo albums, as well as for CD cover are, which shows 
up with the music files. 
Click on the image of a CD cover and the image will spin around to show 
you the playlist on the back of it. 
The screen can be adjusted to show a movie normally or in wide-screen 
mode. 

"It's the best iPod we've ever made," says Jobs.

Phone Features 

Contacts can be downloaded from a PC or Mac. 
Contact lists will offer different phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and 
photos of the person. When the phone rings, not only the person's name 
will appear on the screen but a picture of them, if it's in the contact 
list, will pop up as well. 
Visual Voicemail. Have you missed 10 calls while you were flying from New 
York to Chicago? The iPhone will list them for you on the screen so you 
can pick and choose which ones to listen to and in what order. 
The phone supports both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0. 
Users can set up conference calls. 
The phone will enable users to set up a list of favorites for the people 
they call most often. 
Touch the screen and a keypad will pop up. A keypad also will pop up for 
text messaging and e-mailing. 
If a user is listening to music when a call comes in, the music will fade 
out and the device will ring. When the call is over, the music will come 
back up. 
Apple's trademark white earphones will have a microphone to be used with 
the phone feature. 

Internet Communication Features 

It's designed for HTML e-mail and will work with any IMAP or POP3 e-mail 
service. 
Safari will be the first fully usable HTML browser for a mobile phone, 
Apple says. 
The iPhone will sport Google Maps for traffic reports, satellite images 
and directions. 
It will support widgets for weather and stock reports. 
Yahoo will push e-mail down to iPhone users free of charge. 
If a user is looking at an e-mail with a phone number in it, just click on 
the number in the e-mail and the phone will make the call. 
Need to find a restaurant in a city you're visiting? Find it with Google 
Maps, and then call them on the same device. 
Users can view e-mail with a split view just like they do on their 
desktops. 

"It's the Internet in your pocket," said Jobs.
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