iPhone basics: The specifications
Has it really only been a month-and-a-bit since the long-rumoured Apple iPhone was announced? Yes, indeed, January 9th was when Steve announced the iPhone during his MacWorld 2007 Keynote speech.
And what better way to launch the definitive site for iPhone goodness than with a rundown of the specifications. Some things are still under wraps, but here's what we know so far:
First up is that gorgeous touch screen that fills almost the entire front panel. It's a 3.5 inch (diagonal) screen, boasting a resolution of 320 x 480 at 160 pixels per inch. That's more than enough for widescreen (16:9) viewing, though you'll probably get black bars at the top and bottom of the images.
It has just one physical button at the bottom of the display. Nearly everything else is done via the touchscreen, using intuitive finger motions such as tapping, sweeping and 'pinching'.
It features several sensors. One reorients what's displayed on screen when the phone is rotated between landscape and portrait orientation. It also has a proximity sensor that knows when you have the phone to your ear and adjusts the screen and touch pad accordingly.
The phone is quad-band, wi-fi enabled (Apple site specs say 802.11b and g though Steve was talking about n compatibility also), with Bluetooth 2.0 EDR, GSM, and EDGE.
It comes with a 2 megapixel camera.
It will run Apple's own Mac OS X system, likely a cut-down (and locked down) version of Leopard (which will be released before the iPhone). Jobs described and demonstrated the use of Mac OS X applications and widgets, including stock trackers, weather, iChat, iCal, iTunes, iMovies, and iPhoto. It will also utilise Core Graphics, and other features that will be familiar to anyone who uses the desktop version of OS X.
It will almost certainly contain an Intel-developed (though not owned) main processor (possibly the Marvell PXA320), with additional ARM and Broadcom chips.
It'll offer 5 hours battery life when talking, browsing the web, or watching video, and 16 hours of audio playback. No word on standby time.
Dimensions are 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches (115 x 61 x 11.6mm), with a weight of 135 grams.
There are plenty of calling features, tied into your contacts list and email, including setting up 3-way voice conferences, sending email whilst on a call, and easily adding and calling numbers from emails.
Software wise, it contains a version of Apple Mail, featuring rich HTML email, web browser Safari, with Google and Yahoo searches, Google Maps, and Widgets. Given that the phone OS is Mac OS X, it shouldn't be difficult to put a variety of other apps onto the system, though those will only be approved ones given that the system is to be locked down. Apple claim that apps run fast. They also say that PC users will be able to sync their contact data, so presumably as well as supporting the 'i' range of Mac apps, there'll be some syncing with Outlook etc. We'll wait to see how that bit works.
Apple announced that they'd teamed up and formed close alliances with both Google and Yahoo, which is also exciting.
In conclusion, it looks very good. It's been well over 2 years in the making, and it shows. It offers a dynamically new way for users to interact with their phone, using just their fingers. No more add-on or pull-out keyboards, fiddly styli, or other oddities. Of course, the proof will be in the using, and it may not suit everyone (like any interface) but it certainly looks good from a distance.
The groan factor is the wait. Even the US won't get it until June (Apple don't have full FCC approval yet, apparently, so things could change a little in specs etc.). Europe isn't due to get it until at least the last quarter of 2007.
Plenty of time to enjoy the pre-product warm up here at iPhonic!
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