Posted Jan 9th 2007 12:45PM by Chris Ziegler
Filed under: Cellphones, Features, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video
Capping literally years of speculation on perhaps the most intensely followed unconfirmed product in Apple's history -- and that's saying a lot -- the iPhone has been announced today. Yeah, we said it: "iPhone," the name the entire free world had all but unanimously christened it from the time it'd been nothing more than a twinkle in Stevie J's eye (comments, Cisco?). Sweet, glorious specs of the 11.6 millimeter device (that's frickin' thin, by the way) include a 3.5-inch 480 x 320 touchscreen display with multi-touch support and a proximity sensor to turn off the sensor when it's close to your face, 2 megapixel cam, 4GB or 8 GB of storage, Bluetooth with EDR and A2DP, WiFi that automatically engages when in range, and quadband GSM radio with EDGE. Perhaps most amazingly, though, it somehow runs OS X with support for Widgets, Google Maps, and Safari, and iTunes (of course) with CoverFlow out of the gate. A partnership with Yahoo will allow all iPhone customers to hook up with free push IMAP email. Apple quotes 5 hours of battery life for talk or video, with a full 16 hours in music mode -- no word on standby time yet. In a twisted way, this is one rumor mill we're almost sad to see grind to a halt; after all, when is the next time we're going to have an opportunity to run this picture? The 4GB iPhone will go out the door in the US as a Cingular exclusive for $499 on a two-year contract, 8GB for $599. Ships Stateside in June, Europe in fourth quarter, Asia in 2008.
Quite the pretty. Looks like we'll be waiting a year, though.
Software, design- all great.
My main concern is it looks too 'delicate' to be my phone. The screen looks a bit like the PSP one and might be a fingerprint/ greasy face magnet.
It will be interesting to see the market- too funky for corporate types who currently use the Treo/ Blackberry; too expensive for teenagers once you add in the phone contract.
Fuck I want one of these! Now I won't have to get a normal video ipod.
Big ups for OSX and the connectivity to PC's, not just Mac's.
I like the SMS design, how it displays each text in order of being sent and received for each contact like a message window.
2 megapixel camera is decent...not that I use phone cameras often.
The battery life for music/video playback and browsing etc. is also pretty impressive. The standby life must be great.
i want this, but am kinda glad we have to wait a year (for both my contract to run out and the 1st gen problems to be well and truly over)
i'm keen, and the coverflow etc looks fucking awesome, check out the apple site about it all, i am keen as mustard for one of these
the only decision is 4 or 8 gb...
"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion" - L. Ron Hubbard
Pros:
Hugefuckoff screen
OSX
Huge (in comparison) storage space
Cons:
Hugefuckoff screen
Size
no 3G
iTunes
Yeah, if it can only synch with iTunes, it can get fucked, unless Apple releases a version of iTunes that, you know, FUCKING WORKS PROPERLY ON WINDOWS?
The sky calls to us; if we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars
Yeah fuck iTunes. My sister got an iPod and i had to install it to put MP3's on it for her. It was really slow (to the point of feeling buggy and like it would freeze the PC up).
That's my only issue with this. I don't care about 3G, i don't mind the size of it since it is majority screen, the thing looks sexy, has huge amounts of storage space, a gorgeous looking operating system etc.
Wonder what one of these things outright will cost in Australia?
i used itunes on a pc for ages while i had my 3rd gen ipod and it worked great
a bit slow, but great otherwise
same with 7 on pcs in the house
"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion" - L. Ron Hubbard
anything that's as slow as iTunes can't be "working properly" PLus, I really really don't like the way it does stuff to my collection without fucking asking me.
The sky calls to us; if we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars
Well turn that stuff off so that it doesn't mess with anything.
And it's not unusably slow. Runs fine on any machine I chuck it on to. It's certainly not as fast as Winamp, but what is? I've been using it for simplicity's sake with my iPod and I really don't find it that difficult to use. Plus it's got a nifty easy to use automation interface, so I've written an app to do all kinds of funky stuff with it.
Yep, and I'm not going any lower than 8gig. I'd prefer more considering it'll be playing videos. I guess it would be enough for all of my music library that I listen to on a regular basis and then some. You'd have to be a bit more selective before piling movies on there like I have with my 60gig one.
If it works how it says it does and can eventually get down to a more reasonable price - then apple have most certainly changed the world with the most revolutionary evolution in ipods ever!
I wonder if and how that touch screen will be used for games. DS minus the buttons but developers could have creative work arounds for it. Haha I wonder if the accelerometer will be used for games.
4th gen iPod and iTunes here. Couldn't be happier.
Never bought any DRM crud off their dumb store.
At first I was a bit uncomfortable because of the lack of control over the system the user has, but once I just let it go and went with the flow, it's been 100% fine.
I don't 'get' the hype over this iPhone business though. I don't want one. Looks stupid. Apple share price rocketing, yada, yada.... it doesn't make any sense to me. The product doesn't look any better than anything out there right now.
The MS info coming out of CES has me way more excited.