iPhone, Apple TV Headline MacWorld Keynote

Steve Jobs kept his audience rapt at the MacWorld keynote today. He rehashed the announcement of the iTV, now called Apple TV, and announced the iPhone, a revolutionary phone/ipod/wrist-computer that had MacWorld attendees sitting on the edge of their seats. Retailing for $499 (4 gig)/$599 (8 gig), it has to be seen to be believed. It uses a touch screen with a new form of input control, runs OSX and many standard applications, and connects to the internet via WiFi. It has a camera, functions as a movie player, a music player, and can send emails and photos in the middle of a phone call. From the Engadget coverage: "'[OSX] let us create desktop class applications and networking, not the crippled stuff you find on most phones, these are real desktop applications.' He's quoting Alan Kay - 'People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.' 'So we're bringing breakthrough software to a mobile device for the first time.'" Seriously, go check this out. They're going to print money with this thing.

Comments

Price to high

[Joe The Dragon]

$499 (4 gig) $599 (8 gig) with a 2 year plan is a lot and Cingular forces you get a smart phone data contract plan with a smart phone to get the 2 year deal price.
It is $ 40 just for the data.
So like you will $60 + month $40 for data $20 + for voice.

Re:Price to high

[GweeDo]

It was announced as exclusive to Cingular for at least two years.

Re:Price to high

[Midnight Thunder]

It was announced as exclusive to Cingular for at least two years.

When you see Cingular's coverage, in the USA, its clear why Apple went with them:

GSM 1900, GSM 850, 3G 850/1900

WITH Contract

[MindStalker]

Thats $599 WITH a 2 year Cingular contract.

ARG thats insane. Probably $899 by itself if even available.

Re:June in USA, 2008 in Asia... 2015 in Brazil?

[partenon]

By the way, you can see the live transcription of the MacWorld at http://www.macrumorslive.com/ .

Re:Leopard?

[Moby Cock]

Sadly no. The Keynote focused on the Apple TV and th iPhone.

Name Change

[jivemonkey]

Not mentioned in the article Apple Computer, inc. has changed it's name to Apple, inc. Just a tidbit I thought I would mention.

Re:Leopard?

[jsight]

That's not the reason. Vista has already been released to manufacturing, and there certainly would not be any significant changes between now and consumer availability (real soon now).

Re:Battery life?

[sRev]

Pretty sure he said 5 hours talk time and 16 hours of "just music" playback.

Also out: Airport Extreme 802.11n

[vought]

Not anounced in the keynote, but Apple is shipping a mini/tv form-factor 802.11n hub. Appletv will have 802.11n.

Re:Also out: Airport Extreme 802.11n

[azav]

http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/

Enjoy.

Re:Also out: Airport Extreme 802.11n

[Fahrenheit 450]

No. The blurb from the tech page says:

TV compatibility:
Enhanced-definition or high-definition widescreen TVs capable of 1080i 60/50Hz, 720p 60/50Hz, 576p 50Hz (PAL format), or 480p 60Hz

CNET confirms it

[WidescreenFreak]

I didn't see anything on CNBC's web site, but CNET says that heard it directly from Cisco.

10:32--Cisco calls CNET News.com reporter with a statement about Apple's use of the term "iPhone" for its new product. "Given Apple's numerous requests for permission to use Cisco's iPhone trademark over the past several years and our extensive discussions with them recently, it is our belief that with their announcement today, Apple intends to agree to the final document and public statements that were distributed to them last night and that address a few remaining items we expect to receive a signed agreement today."

Tech specs available at apple.com

[Dster76]

Tech specs

Re:Great phone, shitty provider

[aurumaeus]

It's GSM, Apple will sell it separately, presumably unlocked, so you can use it on T-Mobile in stead. Probably pay an extra $100 up front for it.

Bigger implications

[hrbrmstr]

While Jobs didn't talk much about Leopard, Xcode or the other great stuff Apple has coming this year, I can picture a nice scenario where one will be able to choose "iPhone Project" in Xcode and code like they would (albeit with a very different GUI notion) for the Mac. I also suspect that DashCode was released just to make it easier to build custom widgets for this thing.

If you can buy it without the Cingular/AT&T service from Apple, then it might be worth the cost, since the WiFi/Bluetooth is cool enough and I already have Verizon (along with the entire fam).

5hrs life, tho... gonna be tough if you use it as a cell phone.

Re:Bigger implications

[drinkypoo]

I think you may need to investigate your facts. There are only two major GSM operators in the US. Cingular, and T-mobile.

"Cingular Wireless, LLC, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, is an AT&T subsidiary." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cingular) So ATT is the biggest GSM operator. Thanks for playing.

There are other GSM providers as well: "Edge Wireless LLC is a Mobile phone provider founded in 1999, serving southern Oregon, northern California, southeastern Idaho and Jackson, Wyoming. The company is headquartered in Bend, Oregon, although they provide no coverage or services in that city." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_Wireless) Edge is my provider. They're putting up towers pretty quickly on my coast and they have quite a bit of capacity in the listed markets - that still makes them a niche player of course, I just want to mention them. Since many of the GSM providers in the US (if not all of them) cooperate, it's unimportant which of them are large players. For the purposes of deciding what is useful, only the total mass must be considered.

Alltel themselves provides significant GSM capacity, and the size of their network is defined by coverage, not their number of customers: "When Alltel acquired Western Wireless in 2005, it also gained a large GSM footprint as well. While it does not offer GSM service to its own customers, Alltel has indicated that it will continue to maintain the GSM footprint (and perhaps even expand it) to provide roaming service to GSM users of other wireless carriers. Alltel advertises itself as "owner and operator of the nation's largest wireless network"; this claim refers to geographical coverage of its network rather than number of Alltel customers or population covered." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alltel)

Meanwhile, while CDMA may be the leader in North America, it is overwhelmingly NOT the leader in the world, and I doubt Apple plans to sell their phone only in the US. According to this press release (linked from "GSM" on wikipedia) "Globally, there are 2.29 billion cellular users encompassing all technologies" and the press release itself is about the number of GSM users worldwide being expected to cross two billion that month - that month being June of 2006.

Thus, if the choice is between technologies, then GSM is the only logical choice; probably a large part of the decision was based on who was willing to partner with Apple and with what terms.

Finally, according to this article on BetaNews on August 31, 2006, "As of the end of the second quarter of 2006, GSM had added 100 million new customers over the past year to end the period with a 51 percent share." But it seems to be an error; GSM is simply the most common communications technology in The Americas. HOWEVER, if we look at a graph entitled "Market Share Comparison in the United States (Sept 2005 - Sept 2006)" (http://www.3gamericas.org/English/Statistics/11.c fm) we can see that in that timeframe TDMA became barely significant, GSM gained 4.3% of the market, and CDMA lost 0.9%.

Meanwhile, while CDMA does offer some advantages (notably higher rates of data transmission) GSM is coming along in that regard as well.

In other words, CDMA is falling, GSM is rising, and GSM is the uncontested ruler of cell service everywhere but North America. I'm not sure it's worth their while to make a CDMA phone - I think people will be more loath to purchase a $600 phone that only works with one provider (since most CDMA providers give you a really hard time about

Re: Unlimited data price

[Anonymous Coward]

You are incorrect. I have Cingular, and have unlimited data. I send many many megabytes of data on my phone. I am charged $20 per month.

Technical Specs

[benji_mouse]

From apple.com/iphone/technology/specs.html

Screen size          3.5 inches
Screen resolution    320 by 480 at 160 ppi
Input method         Multi-touch
Operating system     OS X
Storage              4GB or 8GB
GSM                  Quad-band (MHz: 850, 900, 1800, 1900)
Wireless data        Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) + EDGE + Bluetooth 2.0
Camera               2.0 megapixels
Battery              * Up to 5 hours Talk / Video / Browsing
                     * Up to 16 hours Audio playback
Dimensions           4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches / 115 x 61 x 11.6mm
Weight               4.8 ounces / 135 grams

Re:Great phone, shitty provider

[plover]

Funny, I'm paying $20/month for unlimited GPRS data from Cingular. Just get the data plan on your phone. The plan doesn't care who's requesting data, whether it be the phone or the computer. You don't have to get a special "plan" for your laptop unless you're not smart enough to figure out how to interconnect them on your own.

Re:Contracts

[Da_Biz]

...and, my roommate has this phone. It's certainly not bad, but Jobs' keynote speech really did hit the nail on the head on the awkwardness of this and similar phones.

My roommate's general comment: "it's really great, but one of the most difficult things to do with this phone is actually use it as one."

Re:I DONT want a GSM + Edge phone...

[mean pun]

If five years down the road the hardware (or even software) part of the business isn't contributing, it can easily be jettisoned.

I thought so too, but then I realized that the iPhone runs Mac OS X, and perhaps the AppleTV thingy also does. I consider that a positive sign.

Re:Wireless, but still less space than a Nomad

[thegameiam]

Cingular and T-Mobile do not share the same network.

There are 4 major wireless networks in the USA currently:
Cingular
Verizon Wireless (CDMA)
Sprint/Nextel
T-Mobile

Cingular and T-Mobile do share the same network technology (GSM/GPRS), which might be what you're thinking of.

Re:Contracts

[jaweekes]

I have one (Sprint PPC-6800. It's the same model though) and it really does do cool things, but it really sucks as a phone! My company purchased it for me so I can remote into the servers with it via Terminal Services and VPN, but this Apple IPhone is what I really want.

Proximity sensors so it turns off the touchscreen when it's close to your ear! I can not tell you how much of a problem that is on the 6800.

In all fairness...

[SvnLyrBrto]

The two articles were posted, and commented upon, by two different editors.

No reason to disparage Zonk, just because taco turned out to be a clueless twit.

cya,
john

Nokia 800

[xzvf]

The N800 is functionally very close without the Cingular connection.

Re:Wide Screen

[discstickers]

It has an optical audio out jack.

OpenMoko

[p7]

Lots of the iPhone features will be available this month on the FIC Neo1973 Smartphone. It is also an open platform.

http://www.openmoko.com/press/index.html/

Re:EDGE not EVDO

[jedrek]

actually, edge is a LOT faster than gprs:

EDGE can carry data speeds up to 236.8 kbit/s for 4 timeslots

The maximum speed of a GPRS connection (as offered in 2003) is the same as modem connection in an analog wire telephone network, about 4-5 kB/s (depending on the phone used).

from wikipedia

Re:Wide Screen

[kyouteki]

Very few televisions have digital audio in, outside of HDMI. If one must hook up with component, one will probably also be using R/L analogue audio.

Sorry to throw cold water on your imaginings.

[jcr]

I asked the obvious question right after the house lights came up, and there is no public SDK for this device, just like the other iPods. This was right from Ron Okamoto (Apple's VP of developer relations.)

-jcr