Jobs and new Apple reinvent the phone and deliver again in style

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 10 January 2007 05:09

Opinion and Analysis

There has been some talk from some media around the show that the price of US$499 for the 4GB and US$599 for the 8GB flash versions may be a little pricey. However, the iPhone is just so obviously in a class of its own that no-one was really complaining.

If there is any weakness at all, then it may be that the first version of iPhone is GSM rather than 3G, which provides better bandwidth for Internet access. Once again, however, the proliferation of wireless hotspots and the built in Wi-Fi of iPhone makes high speed web browsing very accessible to the device.

iPhone goes on sale in the US in June 2007, Q4 in Europe, and 2008 in Asia. Jobs has set a target for Apple to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008, approximately 1% market share of the approximately 1 billion mobile phones that will be sold in that year. However, a device this revolutionary has the potential to makes Jobs’ projections seem conservative.

The iPhone captivated the audience at the Macworld 2007 keynote address of Jobs so completely, that it was easy to forget that he also spent some time on other announcements.

For instance, Jobs announced that the Apple TV (formerly iTV) set top box for streaming video from PCs or Macs would go on sale for US$299 in February. He also announced that Paramount had joined Disney as a partner for supplying movies to iTunes, boosting its library from 100 to 250 movies.

Finally, Jobs announced that Apple Computer Inc had changed its name to Apple Inc, reflecting the fact that Apple was no longer just a computer company. It was interesting and strangely appropriate that in a year in which Apple did so well in converting new users to the resurgent Intel-based Mac platform, that Jobs spent just five minutes at the opening of his keynote address on the Mac. Perhaps next year Macworld should be renamed Appleworld 2008.