So, in one fell swoop Steve Jobs today announced a device that essentially embodied EVERY single iPod related rumor from the past year…
Lesse, widescreen… check. Touchscreen interface… check. phone… check. WiFI… check. Today at the Macworld keynote, the Apple iPhone was announced. The device actually breaks Apple’s normal pattern of a device becomming available within days of it’s announcement. Because it still needs to get FCC approval, the iPhone won’t hit the market until June. Since the FCC publishes the details on the devices that are submitted to them for approval there was no way that Apple could have kept the iPhone secret once it went to the FCC.
The iPhone looks to be an extremely impressive device. The only thing that doesn’t impress me is it’s data connectivity. For cellular data, the iPhone uses Cingular’s EDGE network which isn’t all that fast. One the other hand the Cingular Blackjack uses the 3G/HSDPA which is very fast, the same with the Motorola Q which uses Verizon’s WirelessBroadband service. I’m extremely hopefully that the iPhone will see an upgrade soon.
I’ve also got to wonder if we’ll be seeing a new iPod with many of the new features that were introduced (or will be introduced) in the iPhone. Personally, if I was in the market for an iPod, I’d wait two or three months. It just wouldn’t surprise me if there was word of one of Steve Job’s “One More Thing” press events scheduled for a few months from now…
