iPhone to hit stores June 29
By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor -- EDN, June 4, 2007
Consumer electronics superstar Apple Inc. has set the date for its highly anticipated debut in the mobile phone market. In a trio of television commercials that first aired Sunday, Apple said it will start selling its iPhone in the United States on June 29.
The ads display the iPhone's touchscreen and its multimedia capabilities. The company has not yet set a date for the iPhone's debuts in Europe or Japan.
The iPhone, which will operate exclusively on AT&T Inc.'s wireless network, will be available in a 4GByte model costing $499 or an 8GByte model costing $599. The iPhone will be less than a half-inch thin and will come with a 2-megapixel digital camera built into the back, along with a slot for headphones and a SIM card. Upon announcing the iPhone in January, Apple's CEO Steve Jobs said that he hoped to eventually capture 1 percent of the worldwide mobile phone market, a goal that market research firm iSuppli Corp. has called "attainable."
Although the new handset's success remains to be seen, Wall Street is apparently looking to the iPhone's debut with a good deal of enthusiasm. The company's stock has been hovering at record high levels in recent weeks; following Sunday's announcement of the iPhone's June 29 market debut, shares of Apple opened this morning at $118.65, and shot up to $121.19 at around 10:15 a.m. eastern, more than doubling the $57.27 share price Apple's stock averaged in June 2006. On Thursday, May 31, Apple's stock hit an all-time high of $122.17.
