The Pacer

Issue date: 1/23/07 Section: Technology

"A widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough internet communications device - an iPod, a phone and an internet communicator. Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. This is one device. And we are calling it iPhone."

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs made this announcement public in his Keynote presentation at Macworld Expo 2007, a thunderous applause rose from the audience. Apple's newest product, slated to hit store shelves in June, is like no other phone you have ever seen. Let's take a look at what makes iPhone so impressive.

For starters, iPhone features an incredible new user interface. Apple has created and patented an incredible new multi-touch technology that allows the user to control everything with only the use of a finger or two to the screen. This also means that the iPhone uses a QWERTY soft keyboard to type right on the screen rather than a typical, hard-to-use plastic variety.

The iPhone is a widescreen iPod, so all of your music, audio books, photos, TV shows and movies are in the palm of your hand. As Jobs says, "You can touch your music."

Browsing through your music library is easier than ever with just the flick of a finger. Photos can be viewed and videos watched in either landscape or portrait mode on the 3.5 inch widescreen display. Or, if you change your mind halfway through, just flip the iPhone sideways and the image will automatically rotate, thanks to iPhone's built-in accelerometer.

Of course, iPhone is also a mobile phone. All of your contacts can be automatically synced from your Mac, PC, or Internet service, and making a call is as easy as touching a name or number in your address book. Apple has chosen Cingular as iPhone's sole provider, because they are the most popular network among users in the United States with 58 million subscribers.

Cingular has also worked with Apple to create a never before seen feature known as Visual Voicemail, which allows the user to go directly to any message without listening to prior messages. An SMS application makes use of the QWERTY keyboard and also prevents and corrects mistakes.

Now for the news that should make any Mac user ecstatic: iPhone runs OS X. Unlike the watered-down operating systems found on other smart phones, OS X provides iPhone users access to desktop-class applications such as widgets, calendar, Notes and Address Book. And the icing on the cake - iPhone is fully multi-tasking, so users can browse the web while listening to a favorite song and downloading a couple pictures in the background if they felt like it.

Continued...

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