Apple unleashes iPhone

By Colleen Taylor -- Electronic News, 1/9/2007

Confirming months of rumors and speculation, Apple Computer's CEO Steve Jobs today announced the consumer electronics superstar's foray into the mobile phone business, the iPhone.

The iPhone is controlled by touch, plays music, surfs the Internet and runs the Macintosh operating system, Jobs said in his keynote at today’s MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. Jobs touted the iPhone as being much more user-friendly than notoriously hard-to-use smart phones, according to reports from inside the expo.

"Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything," an Associated Press report quoted Jobs as saying in his keynote.

The phones, which will operate exclusively on AT&T Inc.'s Cingular wireless network, will start shipping in June. A 4GByte model will cost $499, while an 8GByte iPhone will be $599. iPhone is less than a half-inch thin, comes with a 2-megapixel digital camera built into the back, along with a slot for headphones and a SIM card.

iPhone reportedly uses a patented touch-screen technology Apple is calling "multi-touch," instead of a stylus, like many Blackberry devices require. The phone supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technology and can detect location from global positioning system satellites, AP reported. It also can send and display e-mail and text messages. Apple is reportedly partnering with Yahoo Inc. on Web-based e-mail and Google Inc. on maps.

The Apple news comes almost a month after Cisco Systems Inc.’s Linksys division laid claim to the iPhone moniker with a line of phones. Cisco indicated today that it and Apple have been in talks for permission to the iPhone name, and expect to reach an agreement of sorts, according to a MarketWatch report.  Reps at both companies could not be reached for immediate comment. 

Also today, Jobs said Apple will begin taking orders immediately for the $299 video box called Apple TV,  shipping next month. Jobs added that Apple will sell digital movies from Paramount.

The effects of the new product launches quickly reverberated from San Francisco all the way to Wall Street. After trading at around $85 per share for the past week and opening this morning at $86.50, shares jumped during and after Jobs' keynote. Apple shares were trading for as much as $92.35 as news of the iPhone hit blogs and news sites, an increase of 6.7 percent.

In other Apple news today, activist organization Greenpeace has made waves, campaigning for Apple to engage in more environmentally friendly practices by projected giant images of Asian scrap yards on the iPod maker's downtown San Francisco store.