A long awaited announcement has come from Apple regarding their innovative iPhone. Apple unveiled at Macworld on Tuesday the iPhone which will “reinvent the phone” according to Steve Jobs, Chief Executive of Apple.

The Mac OS X-based iPhone resembles the iPod in design but has one big difference to phones currently on the market, the wide touchscreen and single button interface. Users of the phone will have the capability to make calls, send MMS messages, browse the web, listen to music, and take and upload photos all using the sleek interface.

Plans are that the device will be available in the US in June of 2007. Two models are planned to be available a 4GB and an 8GB model. The 4GB model should cost around $499 (approx £257) with the 8GB model being around $599 (£308) each with a 2 year service agreement.
<img src="http://www.webhostdir.com/images/iphone.gif" alt="iPhone" align="right">
During the 2 hour keynote in which the iPhone was introduced Steve Jobs also announced the anticipated Apple TV, which has been previously know by the name “iTV”. A name change for the Apple Company was also mentioned

The trademark “iPhone” is currently owned by Cisco but Apple and Cisco are currently in talks to discuss the use and ownership of the trademark.
The iPhone has controls on its side and is thinner that the Motorola Q and Samsung’s BlackJack at only 11.6mm thick.

The phone has Wi-Fi capability and automatically switches from a mobile network to Wi-Fi if it detects a signal. It also comes loaded with Apple’s Safari web browser and incorporates Google’s search facility and mapping services. Users will be able to make phone calls directly from Google maps.

The phone also has an added feature of knowing when you are answering a call. It has a proximity sensor which when the phone is brought to a users face, it will switch off music that the listener may be listening to and switch the telephone on.
<img src="http://www.webhostdir.com/images/iphone2.gif" alt="iPhone" align="left">
Apple have added a sleek voicemail innovation developed with Cingular wireless called visual voicemail which means that a user can see all voicemail received and choose which voicemail to listen. So, as Jobs outlined in his keynote, if you had 6 voicemail messages you could skip straight to the 6th message without having to listen to the previous 5.

Apple TV
Apple TV was also mentioned in Jobs’ keynote. Apple TV is a home networking device that Jobs’ previously mentioned in September 2006. Users of Apple TV can stream content from up to five computers and “autosync” from one computer very much like the usability that people are already used to with iTunes and the iPod.

Apple TV will have a price tag of around $299 (approx £154). It is an Intel-based device and will have 720p high-definition video and a 40GB hard drive to store up to 50 hours of video. It will use the new draft Wi-Fi standard 802.11n. Apple are to start taking orders for the product on Tuesday and start shipping the product in February

Company Name Change
Jobs also announced that Apple is to change its company name. Apple views its product range to be expanding in a way that the products are not all viewed as “computers” by the industry, only the Mac is viewed in this way, so in-line with this the word “Computer” will be dropped from the Company name. The company will just be known as “Apple Inc”