 pple Computer CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday made the company's long-awaited jump into the mobile phone business, unveiling a gadget that's controlled by touch, plays music, surfs the Internet and runs the Macintosh computer operating system.
Jobs also renamed the company "Apple Inc." to reflect its increasing focus on consumer electronics.
The iPhone, which starts at $499, will "reinvent" the telecommunications sector and "leapfrog" past the current generation of hard-to-use smart phones, Jobs said."Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything," he said during his keynote address at the annual Macworld Conference and Expo."It's very fortunate if you can work on just one of these in your career. ... Apple's been very fortunate in that it's introduced a few of these."Jobs also unveiled a TV set-top box that allows people to send video from their computers to their televisions.
Jobs demonstrated the phone's music capabilities by playing "Lovely Rita, Meter Maid," from the Beatles' "Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band," as the album's psychedelic album art graced a wide-screen monitor.
IPhone uses a patented touch-screen technology Apple is calling "multi-touch.""We're going to use a pointing device that we're all born with," Jobs said. "It works like magic. ... It's far more accurate than any touch display ever shipped. It ignores unintended touches. It's super smart."The phone automatically synchs your media -- movies, music, photos -- through Apple's iTunes Music Store. The device also synchs e-mail content, Web bookmarks and nearly any type of digital content stored on your computer."It's just like an iPod," Jobs said, "charge and synch."The phones, which will operate exclusively on AT&T Inc.'s Cingular wireless network, will start shipping in June. A 4-gigabyte model will cost $499, while an 8-gigabyte iPhone will be $599, Jobs said.
IPhone is less than a half-inch thin -- less than almost any phone on the market today. It comes with a 2-megapixel digital camera built into the back, as well as a slot for headphones and a SIM card.
In a demonstration Tuesday, Jobs slid his finger across the display to reveal a home screen and then scrolled through a list of songs.
To make a call, users can tap out the number on an onscreen keypad or scroll through their contacts and dial with a single touch.
Apple is also introducing what it calls "visual voicemail," so users can jump to the most important messages rather than have to listen to all of them in order.
The phone supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technology and can detect location from Global Positioning System satellites. It also can send and display e-mail and text messages. Apple is partnering with Yahoo Inc. on Web-based e-mail and Google Inc. on maps.
With a few finger taps, Jobs demonstrated how to pull up a Google Maps site and find the closest Starbucks to the Moscone Center. He then prank-called the cafe and ordered 4,000 lattes to go before quickly hanging up.
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