The iPhone's features: What's new, what's notUnless you've cut yourself off from all media access this year, you know that on Friday, June 29 Apple will release its iPhone with AT&T. Ever since the device's unveiling last January, the tech world has been running in circles asking what the iPhone will be like, what it will do, and how it will do it. But because Apple hasn't been the leakiest of faucets when it comes to specs, the hype has resulted in a lot of speculation instead. Of course, that will all change in several days, as you can be sure everyone lucky enough to get an iPhone in their hands--including us--will flood the Web with opinions.
A lot has been made of the iPhone's touch screen and its lack of buttons. Yet the iPhone is not the first cell phone to rely so heavily on a touch screen. The LG Prada, the Motorola MING, the HTC Touch, and the Samsung SGH-i718 all feature prominent touch screens, with this last handset offering tactile feedback as well. Sure, these other handsets may have the traditional Talk and End keys, but you won't find a standard dialpad or keyboard. But will it be easy to use? Will it allow for fast typing? Though these questions are completely warranted--there is a learning curve for a touch screen if you've never used one before--a doomsday scenario doesn't exactly ring true. If other phones use a touch screen so effectively, the iPhone might just be able to do the same. Where the iPhone's touch screen really seems to distinguish itself is in the way you can manipulate things such as your music playlists and your photos. At MacWorld, the way Apple CEO Steve Jobs swept his finger across the display to shuffle music and resize photos was very showy indeed.
A big attraction of the iPhone is the iPod digital music player and the iTunes integration, but the iPhone is hardly the first cell phone to play music. Sony Ericsson's Walkman phones, such as the W810i, are especially good at playing your tunes, and Nokia's Xpress Music handsets such as the 5300 are quite nifty as well. What's more, the iPhone is not the first cell to interact with iTunes; it will just do so in a different way. Remember the dud that was the Motorola ROKR E1? That had an iTunes player. Moto's Razr V3i and the SLVR L7 had them as well. Yet those phones were crippled with a ridiculous 100-song limit, a sluggish iTunes interface, and limited Bluetooth. Fortunately, the iPhone boosts its memory to respectable levels--though 8GB is somewhat small as MP3 players go--and adds stereo Bluetooth. So while it doesn't add iTunes to the mobile phone, it should do be the first to do it effectively. On the other hand, the iPhone will not be able to download music wirelessly. Several phones, such as the Samsung Upstage and the LG VX8300, have such capability--and Sprint and Verizon have their own music stores.
From what we've seen in the iPhone commercials on Apple's Web site, the video experience on the iPhone looks quite pretty. A lot of other cell phones play video, either through 3G services or Sling Box, but the iPhone will be the first to accept downloads from iTunes. So it goes without saying that it won't be average streaming video over 3G. On the other hand, Verizon Wireless has its V Cast Mobile TV service on handsets such as the LG VX9400 and the Samsung SCH-U620. |
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