Apple unveils iPhone at MacWorld

“iPhone is a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s ceo. “We are all born with the ultimate pointing device – our fingers – and iPhone uses them to create the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse.” The quad band GSM phone also features EDGE and WiFi wireless technologies for data networking. In the US, Cingular will be Apple’s exclusive carrier. Alongside allowing users to make calls by simply pointing at a name or number, iPhone features Visual Voicemail, which allows them to see a listing of their voicemails, decide which messages to listen to, then go directly to those messages. Other features include a 2Mpixel camera and a photo management application. The device can also act as a widescreen iPod, with a 3.5inch display offers the ultimate way to watch TV shows and movies on a pocketable device, with touch controls for play-pause, chapter forward-backward and volume. Two versions will be available, with 4Gbyte and 8Gbyte capacities. Built in sensors – an accelerometer, a proximity sensor and an ambient light sensor – are also featured. The accelerometer detects when the user has rotated the device from portrait to landscape and changes the contents of the display accordingly. The proximity sensor detects when you lift iPhone to your ear, turning off the display to save power and prevent inadvertent touches until iPhone is moved away. Meanwhile, the ambient light sensor adjusts the display’s brightness to an appropriate level. The iPhone will not be available in Europe until ‘late 2007’.