With Apple's stock shooting up nearly 10% during his keynote address at Macworld San Francisco this morning, Steve Jobs introduce the iPhone, an iPod/mobile phone hybrid that runs Mac OS X. The phone, which will be available exclusively from Cingular in June 2007, will cost $499 for a 4GB model and $599 for an 8GB model. Jobs -- in all of his "SteveNote" reality-distorting glory -- put the introduction of the iPhone on par with two other events in Apple history: the introduction of the Mac and the introduction of the iPod.
The phone itself is feature-heavy, although not a "3G" phone for data. Using GSM and Edge for high speed networking over a mobile connection, the phone also features built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 reception, enabling users to surf the Internet on wireless Internet networks as well as over the Cingular network. The fact that it runs Mac OS X means it can support "desktop" caliber applications, Jobs said, including Safari and Mac OS X desktop widgets for accessing weather, stock and other information.
The iPhone doesn't offer a small keyboard, but rather a touchscreen using Apple's Multi-Touch technology, which responds to gestures on the screen for scolling, zooming and typing. Jobs didn't show much e-mail functionality, put he did type on the screen for a messaging session with Apple VP Phil Schiller.
The iPhone features a gorgeous 3.5-inch high-resolution display with slick graphics and animation. Jobs demoed the ability to send e-mail messages during a phone call, to pause and mute music for incoming calls and to browse full web pages, zooming in on interesting parts. It supports HTML e-mail, POP and IMAP accounts and Visual Voicemail, something Apple developed in conjunction with Cingular.
The high price and six-month wait may make it a more difficult decision for some users than it would have been otherwise, but there's no doubt that it raises the bar on smartphones and Apple may indeed make Steve's target of gaining 1% of the mobile market, or about 10 million phones sold in the first year.
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