The Apple iPhone
When Steve Jobs introduced the Apple iPhone at the Macworld Conference in San Francisco last January, the buzz on the Internet was immense. iPhone became the largest tag in the cloud and bloggers speculated on the greatness of this long awaited technological advancement.
Billed as three devices in one, the Apple iPhone incorporates a new and improved iPod, a revolutionary mobile phone in conjunction with Cingular Wireless, and a full service Internet communications device and web browser.
The Apple iPhone is indeed a slick piece of technology, weighing in at 4.8 ounces and touting a thickness of less than a half inch. It's most striking feature at first site is the fact that there is no keypad; the device appears to be one big screen, and in fact, pretty much is.
The Home Page Menu
Apple's patented multi touch technology is an intuitive user interface that uses the human finger as its mouse. Scrolling through play lists and contacts, clicking and double-clicking, zooming in and out, are all done with the touch of a fingertip.
Pull up the full QWERTY soft keyboard for SMS text messaging or writing emails, and watch the predictive technology prevent and correct mistakes. Glide through albums with Cover Flow, flip through photographs and move them around, all with the touch of a finger on the multi touch display
Running on the OS X operating system, the iPhone promises desktop class applications on a mobile device, with rich HTML email, text messaging, widgets and more, in a complete multitasking environment.
The New and Improved iPod
The iPod Music Player
The iPod aspect of the iPhone allows for viewing video, podcasts, music videos, TV shows and movies on the 3.5 inch widescreen display. Movies that are filmed in widescreen can be viewed in landscape mode in either widescreen or full screen.
You can download music and video from the iTunes store, or sync the iPhone with the playlist on your PC or Mac. Album artwork can be downloaded and flipped through using the Cover Flow technology with the touch of a finger.
As a long time best selling MP3 music player, the new and improved iPod comes
with 4 or 8 gigabytes of storage and a brand new user interface.
The Revolutionary Mobile Phone
With the iPhone you can make a call simply by pointing to a name or number in your contacts, favorites, or call history list. Or, if you prefer, you can pull up a keypad on the touch screen and dial the numbers individually. It will also sync your contact list through a PC, Mac, or Internet service.
The Call Screen
In conjunction with Cingular Wireless, Apple has developed visual voice mail, a random access technology that allows you to pick the entry you want to listen to without going through the prior voicemails first.
Some of the features include a built in speaker phone, call waiting, hold, call history, and a conference calling feature initiated by pushing the merge calls button.
The SMS text messaging application features the predictive QWERTY keyboard, minimizing and correcting typing errors, and can multitask with multiple texting sessions.
The Apple iPhone uses the GSM quadband frequencies, and has partnered exclusively with Cingular Wireless for cellular service in the U.S… WiFi and Bluetooth wireless technologies are also supported.
The iPhone as an Internet Communication Device
The Safari Web Browser
iPhone offers a full desktop class email client compatible with most Imap and POP3 email applications, and will download email in the background over a WiFi or Cingulars EDGE connection. Rich text HTML email and inline photos offer an email experience not typical of most other smart phones.
An agreement has been reached between Apple and Yahoo! Mail that will offer free push of their Imap email, a service also used with the Blackberry mobile device.
The full service Safari web browser offers up websites in their entirety. You can open multiple websites and double tap to zoom in or out in portrait or landscape views. Both Google and Yahoo! Search are built into Safari.
The Safari web browser also has several widgets built in, including stock reports, and weather applications. In conjunction with Google, the iPhone also features a Google Maps widget with maps and satellite imagery, and search capabilities that can provide phone numbers, directions, and real time traffic reports.
The Slim and Sleek Apple iPhone
Aside from the striking 3.5” 160 pixels per inch multi touch screen display, the Apple iPhone has one button on the front that will take you at any time to the home page menu.
On the side of the handset are the volume controls and a ring/silent switch. The back houses the 2 mega pixel camera that takes both still pictures and video. There is a headset jack and a place for a SIM card on the top, and a sleep/wake switch, speaker/microphone, and a 30 pin iPod connector on the bottom.
The one set of features that get the most cool points in my book are the three
advanced sensors built into the Apple iPhone.
The Proximity Sensor automatically detects when the phone is being brought up to your face and immediately turns off the display to prevent inadvertent touch strokes, and of course, to save energy.
There is an Ambient Light Sensor that will adjust the brightness of the display according to the light in the room. Not only will this save energy, but it makes viewing the screen much easier on the eyes.
The Accelerometer detects when the iPhone has been turned vertically or horizontally, and automatically adjusts the display to portrait or landscape mode. How cool is that?
The Accelerometer Senses Landscape Mode
The Apple iPhone is expected to ship in the U.S. in June of this year pending
FCC approval. Plans are to ship to Europe in the fourth quarter of the year,
and to Asia in 2008. Pricing for the iPhone will start at $499 for 4 Gigs of
storage, and $599 for the 8 Gig model.
