It has a huge multi-touch widescreen, built in camera, OS X operating system with Safari and widgets, plays movies, has bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and of course does music. Steve Jobs has done it AGAIN. But it’s expensive, $499 4G, $599 8G, it won’t be available until June, and it only works with Cingular, plus you have to get a 2 year contract. So it has it’s minuses, but technologically it’s amazing.
Makes the Zune look like the answer to a suddenly irrelevant question, doesn’t it. I really don’t want to be a fanboy, but it’s hard not to be. The contrast between these two companies is just so stark.
purrrrr, I think people will miss the tactile nature of a button, but i;m sure they will get over it with all those zillon features and a oh so simple interface.
ok, so to be completely honest im kind of against apple in a lot of ways. but man, they just shoved it in my face. A device that was a long time coming. and it looks great.
i give this one to apple.
The funny thing is that touchscreen concepts have been floating around for YEARS. but only apple has the BALLS and determination to pull it off. and yes, i was considering buying a zune, but F that, now im waiting until july.
Why dont other companies have this kind of wow factor? why hasnt samsung released something like this in the past 2 years (they sure as hell have the technology and knowhow). Microsoft is WAY behind on hardware.
Thanks Brett!
Can’t wait to see this thing in person.
Hope the finishes hold up better than apple norm. That has been one of my big complaints with apple. They make all these portable devices (from laptops, to ipods) with the most fragile finishes. There has got to be a way to maintain the aesthetic while having it still look relatively new in a month. My iPods look like they’ve been through WWII, and my laptops are worse.
My other big gripe is with memory. You have to buy an ipod and be comfortable knowing another one comes out in a month with double the memory for the same price…
Still hot, and amazing how it can effect Blackberry’s stock so much given it won’t be out for 6 months…
My other big gripe is with memory. You have to buy an ipod and be comfortable knowing another one comes out in a month with double the memory for the same price…
5 hours… that is unfortunate. I guess I’ll have to keep my blackberry/ipod/digi camera combo for now… until gen 2. I just got a Mark Smith pattern lasered into the back of my Blackberry anyway (thanks Jason)
Nice to see this discussion back on track. After watching the way-too-long-and-repetitive Keynote speech, there are several interface features that weren’t mentioned in the media.
Pinching reduces and enlarges photos just like the NYU project here http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/index.html
Proximity sensor that shuts down interface when holding it up to your face
Ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts screen intensity to conserve battery
An optional bluetooth earpiece the size of a Mobile SpeedPass (only thing I could think of that size)
Microphone added to the ipod headphones that are included.
Ability to send photos to the person you’re talking to while you’re talking to them.
Ability to and scroll thru and listen to voicemails just as you do emails - this is the reason that you can use it only with Cingular. They worked together to be able to provide this feature, it’s something that had to be done on both ends.
Google Satellite map integration with search and hot links that will call the place you’re looking for.
Oh - and it will automatically switch from EDGE to Wi-Fi if it detects a a Wi-Fi signal. enabling for a faster internet connection.
And Jobs did say that you get 5 hours of battery life with video and calls, - 16 hours if it’s just used as an iPod.
Certainly everybody won’t throw away their Blackberries and Treo’s, but you have to admit this changes everything. They worked hard on this thing - and the reason it won’t be out until June is because FCC approval takes a few months.
Indeed - and they’ve got over 200 patents pending on this thing. This could get really ugly when companies try to knock it off. Apple is lawsuit happy.
And they are no longer called Apple Computer Inc - they are just Apple Inc. Makes sense. One funny moment during his keynote: he checked Apple’s current stock price, and whadaya know?! It was up.
Oh - and I forgot to mention texting - a full keyboard pops up when you need to do that and it shows a quick enlarged letter of the button you just pushed.
Nothing was ever mentioned about the materials - I wonder how easy it will be to scratch and screw up the screen? Pretty easy I imagine.
Sorry, my home computer is a mac and we have over 50 Macs networked in my office. I’m a bit of a fan, you might say.
yeah I was watching a couple shows leading up to the holidays talking about the Zune and a few other photo/video/mp3 with touch screen etc. and the implication was that the apple’s reign was over and they would really need to
get their ass in gear to catch up…i mean, don’t they know by now
Apple outdid themselves with this, and they had a lot of hype to live up to.
What surprised me most was that they bailed on the click-wheel. They said they invented the click-wheel as a way to continuously scroll through lists. So they lost their most iconic feature, and possibly one of their most useful. Worth it?
I haven’t seen anything in the UI that I haven’t seen elsewhere, but like the original Mac, it’s not that they invented, it’s that they productized those inventions. It’s amazing that 30 years later, few companies have learned this lesson from Apple.
Definitely worth it - have you seen video of how it scrolls? The wheel has been revolutionized IMO. It’s much easier to swipe your finger up & down than it is to spin it in a circle - and it just makes more sense scrolling in the same direction as the lists.
I just wish it was more rugged - It seems like you’re really going to have to take care of this thing.
BTW batteries are also locked inside this thing. Apples claims 5 hours of use. Guarantee its not 5 hours of video though.
Absolutely…think about it…the only way to get this thin is a lithium polymer. The thinner the battery, the less capacity. Unless they have come up with little magic cold fusion nano machines somewhere in that pile of 200 patents.
Will be interesting to see if these Li-polymers swell like baloons as well.