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What is Apple Iphone?
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.[4][5][6]
The iPhone's functions include those of a camera phone, a multimedia player and mobile phone. It also offers Internet services including e-mail, text messaging, web browsing, Visual Voicemail and local "wi-fi" connectivity. User input is accomplished via touchscreen with virtual keyboard and buttons. The iPhone is a 2.5G 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, Australia and Asia in 2008.
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.[24]
Advertising
People waiting in line for the iPhone release in New York CityThe first advertisement for iPhone, titled "Hello," aired during the 79th Academy Awards and took place on 25 February 2007 on ABC. The ad features clips from several notable films and television shows over the last seventy years, showing iconic characters answering telephones and saying "hello" or a similar greeting. The iPhone is shown at the end with the caption "Hello. Coming in June."
The commercial was created by TBWA\Chiat\Day, Apple's ad agency since CEO Steve Jobs' return to the company in 1997. TBWA's Media Arts Lab will continue to handle all upcoming advertising for iPhone, much as it has for iPod.[25]
On June 3, 2007, Apple released four advertisements that announce a June 29, 2007 release date, and which concluded, "Use requires minimum new 2 year activation plan."; the footnote has since been removed from all four of the ads.[26] A fifth ad featuring YouTube was released on June 21, 2007. All five advertisements feature a voice over describing various iPhone features, demonstrated on-screen. The song "Perfect Timing (This Morning)" by a band called Orba Squara plays in the background[27].
Features
Apple has released a Guided Tour video explaining all of iPhone's features through a series of simple demonstrations.[28]
Touch screen
The 3.5 inch (8.9 cm) liquid crystal display (320×480 px at 160 ppi) HVGA touch screen topped with optical-quality glass[29] is specifically created for use with a finger, or multiple fingers for multi-touch sensing. No stylus is needed, nor can an ordinary one be used, as the touch screen requires touch by something with the physical properties of bare skin to operate.[30]
For text input, the device implements a virtual keyboard on the touchscreen. It has automatic spell checking, predictive word capabilities, and a dynamic dictionary that learns new words. Notably, the predictive word capabilities have been integrated with the dynamic virtual keyboard so that users will not have to be extremely accurate when typing — i.e. touching the edges of the desired letter or nearby letters on the keyboard will be predictively corrected when possible. Additionally, an optional landscape mode for text entry with the virtual keyboard has been mentioned by Apple executives as a possibility for iPhone, but Apple has not yet come to a final decision as to its inclusion in the shipping version of iPhone. A possible advantage of landscape text entry would be the availability of larger keys to ease text entry, especially for individuals with larger fingers.
The iPhone varies from common desktop interfaces by using a direct manipulation model of scrolling. Where a typical desktop GUI achieves scrolling by using a scroll-arrow to push a view-window down and thus the content itself up (or the reverse, clicking up to move content down), the iPhone interface enables the user to move the content itself up or down by a touch-drag-lift motion of the finger, much as one would slide a playing card across a table. Additionally, the speed desired for scrolling is computed based on the speed and acceleration with which the drag motion is performed.
Scrolling through a long list works as if the list is pasted on the surface of a wheel: the wheel can be "spun" by sliding a finger over the display. After the finger is lifted from the display the wheel continues to "spin" for a short moment before coasting down. In this way, the iPhone seems to simulate the physics of a real object, which, it is thought, should give a natural feel to the whole process.
The UI also features other visual effects, such as horizontally sliding sub-selections and co-selections from right and left, vertically sliding system menus from the bottom (e.g. favorites, keyboard), and menus and widgets that turn around to allow settings to be configured on their back sides.
The photo album and web page magnifications are examples of multi-touch sensing. It is possible to zoom in and out of objects such as web pages and photos by respectively "unpinching" and "pinching" them, that is, placing two fingers (usually thumb and forefinger) on the screen and moving them farther apart or closer together as if stretching or squeezing the image. This scaling is done uniformly and proportionally based on the image in question so there is no distortion of the image itself, as would be the case if the image were actually stretched or squeezed.
Other inputs
The display responds to three sensors: a proximity sensor that shuts off the display and touchscreen when the iPhone is brought near the face to save battery power and to prevent spurious inputs from the user's face and ears, an ambient light sensor that adjusts the display brightness which in turn saves battery power, and an accelerometer, which senses the orientation of the phone and changes the screen accordingly, albeit in only one 90 degree direction.
A single frontal hardware button brings up the main menu. Subselections are made via the touchscreen. The iPhone utilizes a full-paged display, with context-specific submenus at the top and/or bottom of each page, sometimes depending on screen orientation. Detail pages display the equivalent of a "Back" button to go up one menu.
The iPhone has three physical switches on its sides: sleep/wake, volume up/down, ringer on/off. All other multimedia and phone operations are done via the touch screen.
Phone
The iPhone allows conferencing, call holding, call merging, caller ID, and integration with other cellular network features and iPhone functions. For example, a playing song fades out when the user receives a call. Once the call is ended the music fades back in.
The iPhone will include a Visual Voicemail feature in conjunction with AT&T Mobility, formerly Cingular Wireless, which allows users to view a list of current voicemail messages onscreen, without having to call into their voicemail. Unlike most other systems, messages can be listened to in a non-chronological order, by choosing messages from an on-screen list. AT&T completely reworked their voicemail infrastructure to accommodate this new feature designed by Apple.
SMS messages are presented chronologically in a mailbox format similar to Mail, which places all text from recipients together with replies. Text messages are displayed in speech bubbles (similar to iChat) under each recipient's name.
Camera
The iPhone features a built in 2.0 megapixel camera located on the back, though it cannot record video at this time. It also includes software that allows the user to upload, view, and e-mail photos. The user zooms in and out of photos by "unpinching" and "pinching" them through the Multi-touch interface. The software will interact with iPhoto on the Mac.
Multimedia
The layout of the music library differs from previous iPods, with the sections divided more clearly alphabetically, and with a larger font. The Cover Flow, like that on iTunes, shows the different album covers in a scroll-through photo library. Scrolling is achieved by swiping a finger across the screen.
Like the fifth generation iPods introduced in 2005, the iPhone can play video, allowing users to watch TV shows and films. Unlike other image-related content, video on the iPhone plays only in the landscape orientation, when the phone is turned sideways. A two-fingered tap is used to switch between the video's true wide-screen aspect ratio (with black bars on the top and bottom of the screen) and a zoomed mode (to fill the iPhone's screen).
Internet
Wikipedia on the iPhone's Safari web browserThe iPhone has built-in Wi-Fi, with which it will be able to access the Internet (through a wireless network) via a modified version of the Safari web browser. The iPhone will also be able to connect to the Internet through AT&T's EDGE network but will not be able to utilize AT&T's 3G/HSDPA network, however Steve Jobs' mentioned at the Keynote presentation that 3G support would be a future feature.[30] The web browser displays full web pages as opposed to simplified pages as on most non-smartphones. However, as of WWDC 2007, the iPhone does not support Flash technology.[31] Web pages may be viewed in portrait or landscape mode and support automatic zooming by "pinching" or double-tapping images or text. The iPhone also has Bluetooth 2.x+EDR built in. It works with wireless earpieces that use Bluetooth 2.0 technology and allows file transfer.
An agreement between Apple and Google provides for access to a specially modified version of Google Maps — in map, local list, or satellite form, optimized for the iPhone. During the product's announcement, Jobs demonstrated this feature by searching for nearby Starbucks locations and then placing a prank call to one with a single tap.[7]
The iPhone also features an HTML e-mail program, which enables the user to embed photos in an e-mail message. Yahoo! will be providing a free Push-IMAP e-mail service similar to that on a BlackBerry; IMAP and POP3 mail standards are also supported, including Microsoft Exchange. The iPhone will sync with e-mail programs such as Outlook, entourage and web based email accounts such as Gmail, .Mac mail and AOL.[32]
OS X
Apple has confirmed an optimized version of the Mac OS X operating system (without unnecessary components) will run on the iPhone, although differences between the operating system (OS X) running on Macs and the iPhone have not been officially explained.
It takes up around 700 MB.[33] It will be capable of supporting as-yet undetermined bundled and future applications from Apple.
Apple intends to offer a smooth method for updating the iPhone's operating system, in a similar fashion to the way that Mac OS X and iPods are updated, and touts this as an advantage compared to other cell phones.[34]
Widgets, similar to the ones available in Mac OS X v10.4's Dashboard, are included on the iPhone. They include Stocks and Weather widgets.
The iPhone's version of OS X includes the software component "Core Animation" which is responsible for the smooth animations used in its user interface. Core Animation has not yet been released for Macs, but will be part of Mac OS X v10.5.
Applications
The phone has several applications located at iPhone's "Home" Screen, including YouTube. It will stream the videos over Wi-Fi and/or EDGE after encoding them using QuickTime's H.264 codec, to which YouTube has converted about 10,000 videos. They are expected to convert the entire catalog by Fall 2007, implying that the YouTube application on iPhone will initially only be able to view a certain selection of videos from the site.[citation needed]
At the WWDC 2007 Conference on June 11th, 2007 Apple, Inc. announced that the iPhone will support third party applications via the Safari web browser. The applications must be created in Ajax or JavaScript to maintain device security.[35]
Other
The iPhone features a built-in battery that is not intended to be user-replaceable, similar to existing iPods. The battery is stated to be capable of providing up to seven hours of video, six hours of web browsing, or eight hours of talk time (depending on configuration). The battery life for music playing is stated to be 24 hours.[29] The battery will also allow for up to 250 hours of standby time.
There will be new headphones which are similar to those of current iPods, but which incorporate a microphone. Calls can be answered and ended by squeezing the microphone. The 3.5 mm TRS connector for the headphones is located on the top left corner (as seen from front upright). Wireless earpieces that use Bluetooth technology to communicate with the iPhone will be sold separately.
The loudspeaker is used both for handsfree operations and media playback.
The SIM card is located in a slot at the top of the device[28], and the device is activated through iTunes[36].
Pricing and availability
Customers leave the Apple store of Fashion Valley, San Diego after waiting in line for hours for the iPhone.The first advertisement for iPhone, titled "Hello," aired during the 79th Academy Awards and took place on 25 February 2007 on ABC. The ad features clips from several notable films and television shows over the last seventy years, showing iconic characters answering telephones and saying "hello" or a similar greeting. The iPhone is shown at the end with the caption "Hello. Coming in June."
In a deal concluded through secretive discussions which began in February 2005,[37] AT&T Mobility, formerly Cingular Wireless, will be the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the United States and will remain so until 2009 or later.[38][39] The iPhone may be purchased only with a two-year service plan with AT&T.[40]
Customers line up outside the Apple Store in Cupertino, three hours after it goes on sale. The line continues through the mall. As each customer exits, they are greeted by a round of applause from Apple Store staff and onlookers. This is the nearest store to Apple HQApple received FCC approval for the iPhone on May 17, 2007.[41] Jobs announced that the iPhone will first be available in late June 2007 in the U.S.,[42] during the fourth quarter 2007 in Europe (possibility of the use of 3G networks as provided by Vodafone), and in 2008 for Asia, Mexico and probably the rest of the Americas[43]. Also, Mac OS X v10.5, which was originally planned for release on June 11 at the Worldwide Developers Conference, is now delayed until October 2007, due to the fact that engineers from the Mac OS X team were diverted to work on the iPhone.[44] New commercials for the iPhone began airing on television starting on June 3, confirming a release date of June 29, 2007.
The initial U.S. release will be offered in two configurations with two different prices: a 4 GB model for US$499 and an 8 GB model for US$599.
Apple also announced that its goal is to capture 1% of the global mobile phone market, which would be approximately 10 million units being sold in the first full calendar year of iPhone availability. For comparison, Jobs announced that the Apple iPod commands 62% of the U.S. market share for MP3 players.[45]
On June 28 2007, during an address to Apple employees, Steve Jobs announced that all full-time Apple employees and those part-time employees that have been with the company at least one year would receive a free iPhone. Employees will get their phones in July after the initial demand subsides.[46]
iPhone Pricing Plans USD/month 59.99 79.99 99.99 119.99 169.99 219.99
Minutes 450 900 1350 2000 4000 6000
All plans include visual voicemail, unlimited data (Email/Web), 200 SMS text messages, unlimited nights/weekends (with the exception of the 59.99 plan, which only includes 5000 minutes), Rollover minutes, and unlimited mobile to mobile (AT&T customers only) minutes.[47]
Specifications
The specifications as listed on Apple's website are:[48]
Screen size: 8.9 cm (3.5 in)
Screen resolution: 320×480 pixels at 160 ppi
Input method: Multi-touch screen interface (the "Home" button is the iPhone's only physical front panel button)
Operating System: OS X
Storage: 4 or 8 GB Flash memory
Quad band GSM (GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800, GSM 1900)
Wi-Fi (802.11b/802.11g), EDGE and Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR
2 megapixel camera
Built-in rechargeable, non-removable battery with up to 8 hours of talk, 6 hours of internet use, 7 hours of video playback and up to 24 hours of audio playback, lasting over 250 hours on standby.[29]
Size: 115×61×11.6 mm (4.5×2.4×0.46 in)
Weight: 135 g (4.8 oz)
Package Contents
iPhone
Stereo Headset
Dock
Dock Connector to USB Cable
USB Power Adapter
Documentation
Cleaning/polishing cloth
A separate dock will be sold which will charge the iPhone and the Bluetooth headset. Apple has filed more than 200 patents related to the technology behind the iPhone.[49]
Processor(s)
It is not yet known what processors power the iPhone. However, on 24 January 2007, AppleInsider stated that Samsung will provide a unified CPU.[50] On 7 February 2007, EE Times Europe published a report that three ARM processors are used in iPhone, but did not confirm exactly what chips might be used.[51] Earlier, Intel Italy executive manager Dario Bucci claimed that one of Marvell's XScale series of ARM processors is to be found in iPhone.[52]
Controversies
The iPhone allegedly copied the design of the LG Prada
LG PRADA dispute
LG Electronics has claimed the iPhone's design was copied from the LG Prada. Woo-Young Kwak, head of LG Mobile Handset R&D Center, said at a press conference, “We consider that Apple copied Prada phone after the design was unveiled when it was presented in the iF Design Award and won the prize in September 2006.”[53]
LG later claimed that Apple stole both the ideas and concept of the Prada phone. A lawsuit by LG had been rumored prior to this announcement;[53] however, LG has remained silent on whether or not they will file a lawsuit.
Trademark dispute
On 3 September 1993, Infogear filed for the U.S. trademark "I PHONE"[54] and on 20 March 1996 applied for the trademark "IPhone".[55] "I Phone" was registered in March 1998,[54] and "IPhone" was registered in 1999.[55] Since then, the I PHONE mark has been abandoned.[54] Infogear's trademarks cover "communications terminals comprising computer hardware and software providing integrated telephone, data communications and personal computer functions" (1993 filing),[54] and "computer hardware and software for providing integrated telephone communication with computerized global information networks" (1996 filing).[56] Infogear released a telephone with an integrated web server under the name iPhone in 1998.[57] In 2000, Infogear won an infringement claim against the owners of the iphones.com domain name.[58] In June 2000, Cisco Systems acquired Infogear, including the iPhone trademark.[59] On 18 December 2006 they released a range of re-branded Voice over IP (VoIP) sets under the name iPhone.[60]
In October 2002, Apple applied for the "iPhone" trademark in the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore and the European Union. A Canadian application followed in October 2004 and a New Zealand application in September 2006. As of October 2006 only the Singapore and Australian applications had been granted. In September 2006, a company called Ocean Telecom Services applied for an "iPhone" trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and Hong Kong, following a filing in Trinidad and Tobago.[61] As the Ocean Telecom trademark applications use exactly the same wording as Apple's New Zealand application, it is assumed that Ocean Telecom is applying on behalf of Apple.[62] The Canadian application was opposed in August 2005 by a Canadian company called Comwave who themselves applied for the trademark three months later. Comwave have been selling VoIP devices called iPhone since 2004.[59]
Shortly after Steve Jobs' 9 January 2007 announcement that Apple would be selling a product called iPhone in June 2007, Cisco issued a statement that it had been negotiating trademark licensing with Apple and expected Apple to agree to the final documents that had been submitted the night before.[38] On January 10, 2007 Cisco announced it had filed a lawsuit against Apple over the infringement of the trademark iPhone, seeking an injunction in federal court to prohibit Apple from using the name.[63] More recently, Cisco claimed that the trademark lawsuit was a "minor skirmish" that was not about money, but about interoperability.[64]
On 2 February 2007, Apple and Cisco announced that they had agreed to temporarily suspend litigation while they hold settlement talks,[65] and subsequently announced on 20 February 2007 that they had reached an agreement. Both companies will be allowed to use the "iPhone" name[66] in exchange for "exploring interoperability" between Apple's products and Cisco's iPhone.[67]
Criticisms
Analysts have made several public criticisms of the iPhone, such as:
The iPhone's virtual keyboard has been considered its chief weakness and a risk for Apple.[68] The New York Times' David Pogue and Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg, who both tested the iPhone for two weeks, found learning to use it initially difficult, although eventually usable, with Pogue stating use was "frustrating" and "text entry is not the iPhone’s strong suit" but Mossberg considered the keyboard a "nonissue". Both found the typo-correcting feature of the iPhone was the key to using the virtual keyboard successfully.[33][69]
When the user is not in a Wi-Fi hot spot, the iPhone's network connection will use AT&T's older EDGE network. The data rate for this network is 40kbps, similar to a landline dial-up connection.[70] David Pogue of the New York Times found that the EDGE network was "excruciatingly slow," with the iPhone taking as long as 100 seconds to download the Yahoo! home page for the first time.[33] The EDGE network is being boosted from 40kbps to 80kbps to coincide with project launch.[71]
The rechargeable battery is non-removable, and once depleted, will need to be replaced by the manufacturer for a fee.[33]
iPhone lacks any type of firewall, which some experts claim is posing a data security risk.[72] However, without unsafe applications to firewall, this might be a moot point, if the built in applications do not open unsafe communication ports.
iPhone is only available for those who subscribe to a two-year AT&T service plan.[73]
There is no way to opt out of the data plan and thus people who do not want to use the iPhone's Web capability may find the fee superfluous.[74]
iPhone cannot install full programs from anyone but Apple. [75]
The Safari browser in iPhone supports neither Adobe Flash nor Java.[68]
iPhone lacks a number of common handheld features,[76][77][73] including voice dialing, capacity to sync with corporate internal email systems, voice recording, instant messaging, memory card slot, MMS, A2DP (stereo bluetooth), text copy and paste, video recording with the built-in camera, and support for MP3 files as ringtones.
The iPhone’s virtual keypad won’t work when wearing gloves, which is a concern for wintertime phone calls in cold areas.[78]
The camera in the iPhone is only 2 megapixels, which is small compared to other smartphones, most notably the Nokia N95, which contains a 5 megapixel camera.
The iPhone cannot be added to an AT&T Business account, and any existing business account discounts cannot be applied to an iPhone AT&T account.
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