After so much speculation Apple finally delivered news of its “revolutionary” iPhone during Steve Job’s keynote address at MacWorld 2007. In familiar style Jobs woowed the audience with an abundance of features
whilst mocking the current crop of ’smart phones’.
Whilst the innovative features of the iPhone are applauded already blogs,
podcasts and forums are taking bites out of the Apple with concerns ranging from battery life and scratch resistance (alleged to be better than the iPod) to the lack of 3G (Jobs has hinted this might be included in later models). The price and contract has also come in for criticism however these haven’t as yet been finalised outside US. Restrictions on developers is one bone of contention, however there’s expected developments in widgets plus Google, Yahoo and EA have been provided licences.
So, apart from the very appealing design what are the features of the iPhone? It comes loaded with a stripped down version of OSX running Leopard under Kernal/CoCo, Safari browser, html email, iTunes (including Cover Flow) and Google maps (plus satellite imagery and locations), a 2 meg pixel camera, Quad band, GSM to Edge connectivity, Wifi and Bluetooth 2.0, calendar and address book. It’s all delivered on a 3.5in widescreen 160ppi touchscreen face which provides an updatable interface and comes in 4Gb and 8Gb models. Size wise it measures 61mm wide, 115mm high and 11.6mm deep.
Some nice little touches include a microphone integrated into the earphones
- squeeze to answer and hang-up. Music fade out to allow phone calls and fade back when the call ends. Seemless switching from EDGE to Wifi, pinch zooming, swipe scrolling and visual voicemail allowing you to choose which message to listen to. I’m also a fan of the 3 proximity sensors:
- Button activation and light turns off when held to the face,
- Light sensor controls screen illumination according to daylight available,
- Accelerometer changes aspect according to whether the iPhone is held vertically or horizontally.
As a lover of Mac’s for the past 20 years I’ve already convinced myself I’ll be one of the forecasted 10 million sales in the first year, quite a bold target in a phone saturated market. My recently acquired SE K800i seems to have grown old too fast! However those eager to part with the £260 expected price tag will have to wait til June in the US, the winter months in the UK and Europe is set to see it in 2008.
Complaints about the iPhone are natural and I guess, part of human nature but they’re mostly premature. We’ll have to wait to find out if those bites prove poisonous or are they merely snakes in the grass!
More info can be found on the Apple site: http://www.apple.com/iphone
