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Infinite Loop / The Apple Ecosystem

Behold, the iPhone

What has a touchscreen instead of a keyboard, runs OS X, and sports all sorts …

Apple turned 30 on April 1, 2006—quite a milestone for a technology company that, for much of its life, has provided endless fodder for an army of pundits who have made a living out of writing its obituary. The 2007 Macworld keynote brings Apple into its first full year of its thirties, and the company is keen to demonstrate that 30 is the new 20, and that the new, post-Switch Apple is as ready as ever to do what it was founded to do: make computers for the rest of us... or, waitaminute...

Apple at 30+ makes more than just "computers." Indeed, in spite of his famous declaration that Apple makes computers, and "computers have keyboards," Jobs took the stage this year to tout a roster of products that includes software, services, and one very important device that, though arguably a "computer" in a general sense, decidedly lacks the requisite keyboard.

Not a Mac, but also not the Newton: It's an iPod! It's a Phone! It's an Internet device!

Halfway into the keynote, Jobs introduced Apple's newest portable gadget, the long-awaited iPhone, by comparing it to two past seminal Apple products: the original Mac in 1984, and the first iPod in 2001. The message is clear: the iPhone is intended to be Apple's next revolutionary product, and it will carry Apple forward on the coming wave of ubiquitous wireless broadband.

The new iPhone is a essentially a combination of three devices: a widescreen iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator. It does not have a keyboard.

In lieu of a keyboard, the 11.6mm thin phone sports a 3.5-inch touchscreen that is meant to be used not with a stylus but with the fingers. With a new input interface called "multi-touch" that enables the touchscreen to accept input from multiple places at once, users can use the touchscreen to tap out SMS messages on an onscreen QWERTY keyboard, surf their contacts list, select music tracks, make calls, and perform other phone, messaging, and media functions.

The iPhone's visual interface makes it possible for Apple to provide some new twists on traditional phone functionality. For instance, a new feature called "visual voicemail" lets you listen to your voicemail messages in any order by using the interface to select which message you want to hear. The contact management and dialing software also make it a snap to select the participants in a conference call, and to send group SMS messages.

The phone also makes use of the same kind of motion detection that powers Nintendo's Wii controller. Photos with a landscape orientation can be switched to portrait simply by turning the phone sideways, or iTunes can move into CoverFlow mode using the same motion. And in another novel interface move, photos and web pages can also be zoomed in and out by squeezing the sides of the phone.

For Internet, calendaring, and messaging use, the phone features a version of Safari, along with Apple's Mail client and iCal. Safari can render full pages, and web navigation works much like it does in OS X. Jobs also gave a stunning demonstration of Google Maps on the new phone, with the phone automatically picking out the phone numbers and making them available to the user to call with just a touch.

The phone's Mail client can render rich HTML email, and connect to any IMAP or POP server. In a move that will make the iPhone a viable Blackberry competitor, Yahoo has announced free push IMAP to the phone. Indeed, Google and Yahoo both provide integrated search capabilities on the phone, and Yahoo is using the phone to launch two new mobile services: Yahoo Go and Yahoo oneSearch.

The iPhone's media capabilities are impressive, and it essentially gives you iPhoto and iTunes in the palm of your hand, complete with CoverFlow. The 3.5mm headphone jack outputs clear sound, and the movies and photos displayed on the phone are very sharp.

The new phone accomplishes all of these feats by running a version of OS X, though there's no word yet on exactly how "stripped down" this version is. The iPhone's OS X version also makes heavy use of Dashboard-like widgets to provide extended functionality, like weather reporting.

Other iPhone features include 8GB of storage, a 2MP camera, and support for the following wireless protocols: GSM + EDGE, Bluetooth, and WiFi. The phone has 16 hours of battery life for audio and 5 hours for talk time, video, and browsing.

The phone will be available to Cingular customers in June at a price of $499 for the 4GB version and $599 for the 8GB version. You'll be able to pick one up at either the Apple Store or your local Cingular dealer.

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