The Apple iPhone
Chris Ziegler

Capping literally years of speculation on perhaps the most intensely followed unconfirmed product in Apple's history -- and that's saying a
lot
-- the iPhone has been announced today. Yeah, we said it: "iPhone," the
name the entire free world had all but unanimously christened it from
the time it'd been nothing more than a twinkle in Stevie J's eye (comments, Cisco?).
Sweet, glorious specs of the 11.6 millimeter device (that's frickin'
thin, by the way) include a 3.5-inch 480 x 320 touchscreen display with
multi-touch support and a proximity sensor to turn off the screen when
it's close to your face, 2 megapixel cam, 4GB or 8 GB of storage,
Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and A2DP, WiFi that automatically engages when
in range, and quad-band GSM radio with EDGE. Perhaps most amazingly,
though, it somehow runs OS X with support for Widgets, Google Maps, and
Safari, and iTunes (of course) with CoverFlow out of the gate. A
partnership with Yahoo will allow all iPhone customers to hook up with
free push IMAP email. Apple quotes 5 hours of battery life for talk or
video, with a full 16 hours in music mode -- no word on standby time
yet. In a twisted way, this is one rumor mill we're almost sad to see
grind to a halt; after all, when is the next time we're going to have
an opportunity to run this picture?
The 4GB iPhone will go out the door in the US as a Cingular exclusive
for $499 on a two-year contract, 8GB for $599. Ships Stateside in June,
Europe in fourth quarter, Asia in 2008.
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