It is the logical synthesis of two of the most ubiquitous pieces of technology.
A sleek black device, almost certain to be found in thousands of handbags and pockets before the end of the year, was seen for the first time on Tuesday when Apple unveiled its widely anticipated iPhone.
The touchscreen handset will combine internet access and iPod music with a built-in two megapixel digital camera and video playback features.
Apple’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, launched what he called a “magic”, “super-smart”, super-hyped device, which also provides the more mundane functions of the traditional phone.
The iPhone will use Apple’s OSX operating system and allow users to watch films and download songs, store photos, as well as offering e-mail, calendar and contacts services found in products such as the Blackberry.
The announcement, widely expected by industry insiders, was greeted with cheers from a loyal audience of Apple fans at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Jobs said that the iPhone would “reinvent” the telecommunications sector.
“Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” he told his audience on Tuesday. “It’s very fortunate if you can work on just one of these in your career. The iPod changed everything in 2001. And we’re going to do it again with the iPhone in 2007.”
The handset dispenses with buttons, in favour of a powerful screen that responds to touch. The iPhone also shows album artwork and functions as a personal organiser. It has a proximity sensor that automatically deactivates the screen and turns off the touch sensor when the device is raised to a user’s face. The battery life of the phone will allow five hours of talk time, video and browsing, and 16 hours of audio playback. A 4Gb model will be available for $499 and an 8Gb model for $599. The iPhone will be available in the US from June, in Europe from October and in Asia in 2008. To protect the iPhone, Jobs said the company had filed more than 200 patents.
“In 2001 we introduced the first iPod, and it didn’t just change the way we listen to music — it changed the entire music industry,” he said.
“Today we’re introducing three revolutionary products in this class: an iPod, a phone and an internet device …”
As well as functioning as a music and video iPod it offers services such as “visual voicemail”, which shows users a list of their messages so they can go straight to the ones they want to listen to most.
Designed by Jonathan Ive, who also created the iPod and iMac, Apple will be hoping to cash in on its status as a fashionable brand with an eye on simplicity. Jobs has criticised current mobiles for being too confusing and awkward to use. Experts have said that Apple sorely needed to produce a phone with music capabilities as long-term protection for the lucrative iPod, which has helped boost the company’s profits to record levels.
The rise of cellphones with built-in music features has begun to threaten the iPod’s dominance, forcing Apple to join an already-established market. The iPod’s sales of 70-million since 2001 are dwarfed by the phone industry, which expects to sell more than a billion handsets this year alone. Taking a significant chunk of the handset market away from leading rivals could propel the Californian company to the highest point in its 30-year history.
But some believe the going may be more difficult. On the eve of the announcement Microsoft — which began selling its own music player, the Zune, last year — launched a broadside at its competitor. “It’s probably on the table of things for us to look at but not the number one thing we are focused on,” its vice-president, Robbie Bach, told analysts. During his speech in San Francisco, Jobs also revealed that Apple would drop the word computer from its full name Apple Computer Inc and would from now on be known as Apple Inc, reflecting its increasing focus on consumer electronics.
Many of the announcements had the feeling of inevitability, coming after several years of speculation and previews. In 2002 it emerged that Jobs was considering the possibility of a mobile handset as an attempt to break into the technology markets. But nothing concrete had emerged until Jobs took the stage on Tuesday. The closest Apple came was in 2005, when the company launched an unsuccessful attempt to make iPod-compatible phones with Motorola. Apple shares jumped more than 6% on Tuesday, while the stock of rival smart-phone makers plunged.
Sweet sound of success
A gleaming white sun threatens to dawn from behind the Apple logo on the company’s website. The first 30 years, it says, were just the beginning.
Apple’s PR machine is at full throttle and, even by its standards, speculation about the company’s latest product is rampant.
The annual Macworld conference is Apple’s preferred platform for announcing its new products. With something approaching religious fervour Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, reveals the latest software and hardware and analysts and consumers size them up.
Apple and its followers believe the company’s strength is in thinking differently, in identifying and defining new markets. Nothing illustrates this more than the iPod, with which Apple reinvented portable music and brought digital music above ground.
Pre-iPod, Apple was considered a beleaguered company. Although its personal computers were critically acclaimed, the company’s share of the market dropped from 16% in 1986 to 10,7% in 1990, and in the second quarter of 1997 it posted losses of $708-million.
And then came the iPod. Since its launch in October 2001, Apple’s stock has risen from $7,44 in 2001 to $85 this year. Apple sold 39,4-million iPods in the year ending September 2006, making $7,68-billion. In the UK, iPod ownership outstrips other MP3 players by two to one, and 17% of all web users own one.
But though iPod revenue has continued to increase, overall growth is slowing and investors want a new focus. Ian Fogg, senior analyst at Jupiter Research, said that as well as mobile communications, Apple is pushing forward in areas such as home entertainment. It offers solutions for moving music around the home, and is developing the iTV box, which will enable users to stream video from iTunes to their TV.
Fogg says Apple won’t be too worried by Microsoft’s Zune, though both Zune and the XBox console are consumer-focused brands, like Apple.
He believes Apple has its fingers in enough pies to continue its growth: “Apple is very aware it is the market leader, and that it needs to innovate. It has [had] a product refresh cycle of six to 12 months since the iPod launched in 2001, staying ahead with a steady stream of improvements … Apple has to push forward constantly.” – Guardian Unlimited Â