IPHONE

For the line of Internet appliances, see Linksys iPhone.
iPhone
Manufacturer APPLE Inc.
Carrier AT&T Mobility (formerly Cingular Wireless)
Available Flag of United States June 29, 2007, 6:00pm EDT
European Union Q4 2007
Australia 2008
Japan 2008
Mexico 2008
Screen 3.5 in, 320x480 px at 160 ppi
Camera 2.0 megapixel
Memory 4 GB, 8 GB, internal flash memory
Networks 2G GSM Quad band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), GPRS/EDGE, data speed up to 220 kbit/s
Connectivity Computer via 30-pin iPod dock connector, Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), Bluetooth 2.0
Physical size 115×61×11.6 mm (4.5×2.4×0.46 in)
Form factor Candybar
Weight 135 grams (4.8 ounces)
Media capabilities As iPod (5G)



The iPhone is a multimedia and Internet-enabled mobile phone by Apple, announced by company CEO Steve Jobs during the keynote at the Macworld Conference & Expo on 9 January 2007, that was released on 29 June 2007[1][2][3] in the U.S. at 6 pm "local time", or 6 pm Pacific time for online sales, limit two per person,[4][5][6] although some AT&T stores are only allowing one per person for the June 29th launch.

The iPhone's functions include those of a camera phone, a multimedia player, mobile phone, and Internet services like e-mail, text messaging, web browsing, Visual Voicemail and wireless connectivity. iPhone input is accomplished via touchscreen with virtual keyboard and buttons. The iPhone is a 2G quad-band GSM phone, though Jobs mentioned in his keynote that Apple has a "plan to make 3G phones" in the future.[7]

The iPhone is available from the Apple Store and from AT&T Mobility, formerly Cingular Wireless, with a price of US$499 for the 4 GB model and US$599 for the 8 GB model, based on a two-year service contract. Apple intends to make the phone available in Europe in Q4 2007 and in Mexico and Asia in 2008.
Contents


History

The genesis of the iPhone was Jobs' direction that Apple engineers investigate touch-screens. At the time he had been considering having Apple work on tablet PCs.[8][9][10] Many have noted the device's similarities to Apple's previous touch-screen portable device, the Newton MessagePad[11][12][13][14]—like the Newton, the iPhone is nearly all screen. Its form factor is credited to Apple's head of design, Jonathan Ive.[8][15] Comments made by Jobs in April 2003 at the "D: All Things Digital" executive conference expressed his belief that tablet PCs and traditional PDAs were not good choices as high-demand markets for Apple to enter, despite many requests made to him that Apple create another PDA. He did believe that cell phones were going to become important devices for portable information access, and that what cell phones needed to have was excellent synchronization software. At the time, instead of focusing on a follow-up to their Newton PDA, Jobs had Apple put its energies into the iPod, and the ITUNES software (which can be used to synchronize content with iPod devices), released January 2001.[16][17][18][19] On September 7, 2005, Apple and Motorola released the ROKR E1, the first mobile phone to use iTunes. However Jobs was unhappy with the ROKR, feeling that having to compromise with a non-Apple designer (Motorola) prevented Apple from designing the phone he wanted to make.[20] In September 2006, Apple discontinued support for the ROKR and released a version of iTunes that included references to an as-yet unknown mobile phone that could display pictures and video.[21] On January 9, 2007, Jobs announced the iPhone at the Macworld convention, receiving substantial media attention.[22] On June 11, 2007 Steve Jobs announced at Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference that the iPhone would support third-party applications using the Safari engine on the device. Third-parties would create the Web 2.0 applications and users would access them via the internet.[23] Such applications appeared even before the release of the iPhone; the first being "OneTrip", a program meant to keep track of the user's shopping list