IP Democracy: Apple's iPhone Blows Everything Else Away

Yes, the iPhone is here (and like Ryan at Engadget I am wondering how Apple can use the nameCisco and Apple apparently worked out a deal regarding Cisco’s trademarked “iPhone”) and it’s a barn-burner, a beautiful device that is a gadget-lover’s dream and yet will appeal to the mass market in a way that no other portable device or phone can. Steve Jobs just finished unveiling the new phone at Macworld, along with announcing the iTV unit, now dubbed Apple TV, and Apple hasn’t released any material on the web yet.

But Engadget’s live coverage of the Jobs’ event is enough to get me salivating. Jobs dubbed the iPhone Apple’s third breakthrough, behind the Mac and the iPod, and he isn’t exaggerating.

—It has a touch screen that uses a patented technology Apple has developed called Multi-Touch.
—It runs OS X, which enables desktop-like applications and networking.
—It syncs with iTunes; “iTunes is going to sync all your media to your iPhone — but also a ton of data. Contacts, calendars, photos, notes, bookmarks, email accounts…”
—It’s got at big screen, 3.5 inches, and a very thin form factor.
—It’s got a 2 megapixel camera built-in.
—It’s got three built-in advanced sensors; one for shutting off the touch screen when you bring the iPhone to your ear, one for automatically adjusting brightness and one for sensing whether you’re in landscape or portrait mode.
—It’s driven by big shiny icons.
—It’s got visual voice mail so that you can pick which message to listen to (no more slogging through messages to get to the one message you want).
—It’s a GSM+EDGE phone with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
—It’s got a QWERTY keyboard on-screen and promises to deliver all the email functionality of a Blackberry.
—It uses a Safari browser, offers Google Maps, Yahoo! Go and One Search, and cool photo features.

The price of the iPhone is $499 for a 4 GB model and $599 for an 8 GB model. Cingular (now AT&T) is the phone company partner — it’s not an MVNO relationship — and the two companies will begin selling the device in their stores starting around mid-June, in the U.S., and later in other regions of the world. Cingular and Apple have entered into an exclusive multi-year relationship.

Without a doubt, the iPhone is a truly innovative product. Apple has once again pulled out a lot of design stops — the photos from the demo depict high-quality layout and image display, even for web surfing.

I realize my raves are based on descriptions and photos of a scripted Apple presentation, and that the real world performance might not match the puffery. However, even Ryan noted that something remarkable seemed to be going in during the performance.

People are rapt, everyone is actually literally leaning forward and on the edge of their seat. We’ve never seen a presentation like this before.

Update: Here’s the official Apple press release regarding the iPhone and here’s the iPhone web site.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on January 9, 2007 2:27 PM to IP Democracy