The Beauty and Madness of iPhones.

It has been the talk of the town even before Apple officially announced about its release. Why wouldn't it be? Who doesn't want a phone, iPod, camera, internet and more -- all in one gadget? Unbelievable as it may be at first but the iPhone has met, if not exceeded, its consumers' expectations.

Apple, iPhone's developer, has certainly made the long wait worthwhile. Even if you're not that familiar with the operating system used, you're sure to get the hang of it as soon as you figured out the basics of this touchscreen phone. The original iPhone (released June 2007 in North America) was released with two internal storage size: 4GB or 8GB. Later on, Apple discontinued 4GB models and announced the release of a 16GB model (Macworld, 2008).

Armed with a 3.5-inch colored LCD, iPhone allows you to get instant access to any application with a single tap of your finger (http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/homescreen.html). Customizing your Home screen any way you'd like is a plus factor, allowing you to create up to nine Home screens for quick access.

The iPhone has audio conferencing, call holding, call mergin, caller ID, and visual voicemail, with the integration of other cellular network features and iPhone functions. According to Wikipedia, voice dialing and video calling are not supported by the iPhone.

iPhone's music library is very much similar to that of iPods. The iPhone can sort its library by songs, artists, albums, videos, and playlists among others. iPhone users can download songs exclusively from iTunes over Wi-Fi (http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/ipod.html). And speaking of its wireless fidelity, the iPhone can have internet access when it is connected to a local area wifi. Users can check the latest news on the internet or check their e-mails in the palm of their hands. Although, one must take into consideration that the iPhone does not support Flash or Java technology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone).

Other features included in the original iPhone are a built-in 2.0MP camera, bluetooth, virtual keyboard, calendar, and SMS among others.

Earlier this year, Apple released the iPhone 3G, equipped with the same features as the original iPhone and supporting faster 3G data speeds, 10 hours of 2g talk (from the original 8 hours), and assisted GPS.

No wonder people are going crazy over Time magazine’s Invention of the Year in 2007 (Grossman, 2007).


JaN