Lenogo DVD to iPhone Converter is the most powerful DVD to iPhone Converter software. With Lenogo DVD to iPhone Converter, you may capture and convert any segment of a DVD movie to iPhone mp4 format, you may select target subtitle, and you may select audio tracks. Another function is that you may pause converting process any time and the converted part won't be lost. This is especially useful when you have to stop for another job. 

Lenogo DVD to iPhone Converter is the easiest DVD to iPhone Converter software. It is as easy to use as just a few clicks to convert a DVD to iPhone! Lenogo DVD to iPhone Converter automatically detects your hardware configuration and decide an optimized conversion scheme. Its preview display enables you to observe the whole converting process, making the waiting time enjoyable!

Key features of Lenogo DVD to iPhone Converter:

Highest speed: convert one DVD in half an hour in some high-end computers. Single-step conversion: directly convert DVD to iPhone in one step, no need of any mid type. Super easy to use: as simple as a few clicks.  Full format support: support all kinds of DVD files to iPhone video format. Various kinds of video crop mode. eg. 16:9, 4:3, full screen and so on.  Compact size: convert a whole DVD to only one iPhone video file. Customized settings: you may select subtitle and audio track freely.  User-friendly setting: you may stop anywhere you want and the result is playable.  Hardware auto-detect: Automatically detect your hardware and decide the best converting speed. Preview display: you can see the converting progress in preview window.

In terms of speed, Lenogo DVD to iPhone Converter is superior to all its peers in the market. Lenogo DVD to iPhone Converter support Intel Pentium4 Hyper-Threading Processor and Pentium D Processor, the converting speed even far faster than real-time! Lenogo DVD to iPhone Converter completes the whole conversion process in just a single step. In contrast, many of its peers demand two steps: convert DVD to a mid format, and then convert the mid to iPhone-ready MPEG-4 format which consumes unnecessary time.

Come and experience the fantastic conversion speed and enjoy your iPhone movie time!

Notes:

1. Dvd to iPhone conversion process is closely related to hardware. Conversion speed is subject to the quality of DVD discs and speed of hard drivers.

2. The speed figures in the diagram are test data which may differ from computers.

3. Unregistered version is slower than the registered one because each frame in the former version is noted with "Unregistered version" which wastes time.

11 October 2007 11:23 GMT - If true, this is exactly the kind of leak Apple won't want to see hitting the web before the iPhone's UK launch next month.

The current iPhone could be obsolete by the time Macworld San Francisco comes around in January 2008, insiders have said.

Macworld 2007 was where Steve Jobs officially introduced the iPhone in his keynote speech.

Jobs confirmed at the UK launch of the iPhone that the company are working on a 3G version of the device, a technology that was not included in the first model due to battery life issues.

SmartOffice, an Australian tech site claims to have found out from Taiwan-based sources that "major" software and hardware changes are expected to be introduced to cater for non-US markets.

Among the new capabilities will be GPS and "expanded Wi-Fi capability" as well as the ability to sync with email servers, the site reports.

01.09.2007¡ªApple CEO Steve Jobs today took the stage in San Francisco to deliver his annual keynote address at the Macworld Conference and Expo. As usual, Jobs used the keynote as a forum for reflecting on Apple's progress over the previous year and to introduce new and updated technologies.

Unlike keynotes of conventions past, today's event did ot include wide-sweeping announcements of computer hardware and software. Rather, it focused exclusively on consumer electronics with just two product announcements.

The major one was the long-anticipated iPhone. The iPhone is a wireless phone and handheld device that¡ªunlike the Rokr, Apple's previous foray into cell phones¡ªincorporates a number of Apple technologies beyond iTunes. It can run Mac OS X; it can download and play music via iTunes (and the iTunes Music Store); it uses Safari for Web browsing; and it incorporates support for IMAP, Exchange and POP e-mail accounts and supports HTML e-mail and Web-based mail. But it also offers some new and unique technologies. The device's 3.5-inch screen¡ªwhich occupies the bulk of the front face¡ªis operated via touch and includes support for gestures for controlling the functions of the phone and other features. For example, using a pinching gesture, users can expand and contract the display of elements on screen. Using a swiping gesture, users can scroll through images in a photo collection.

Other features of the iPhone include:

Integration of Google applications, including Google Maps;
A proximity sensor for dimming the display and disabling input when the phone is placed to the user's ear;
Built-in microphone;
The iPhone will be available in June exclusively from Cingular in two configurations:

A $499 version that offers 4 GB storage;
A $599 version that offer 8 GB storage.


Spymac's Michael Simon looks ahead to Macworld 2007, anticipating the release of the long-awaited and all but mythical iPhone.

"So, what, exactly, will Apple bring to the table?" Simon writes. "As the ROKR proved, iTunes and the Apple touch is not enough to win over the demanding cell phone crowd, and it's going to take something pretty astounding to convince people to replace their Motorola RAZR or Sony Ericsson W810i with brand new, largely untested technology."

Aside from the usual features of a smartphone, Simon predicts that wireless connectivity is going to be the key selling point. "An iPhone and a MacBook with built-in wireless EVDO would make a real attractive package, especially if they came wrapped in matching cases, with sleek, white or black enclosures, glossy high-resolution displays, glowing Apple symbols, and just the right slogan: The perfect match. Ready wherever you are," he writes.

But as reader namiir points out in response, "Truth is that with the immense potential that the iPhone has, the poor thing can only possibly disappoint us..."


Back in early 1996, before Steve Jobs returned to Apple, Fortune magazine asked him what he would do if he were still running the then-struggling company. He responded that he would "milk the Macintosh for all it's worth - and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago."

A year and a half later Jobs regained the helm at his old company, and it quickly became apparent either that he'd changed his mind or that he had never meant "milk" in the scary sense - cut off investment. In fact, as we all know, he drove the development of a new OS and a long series of new hardware products that restored the Mac business to profitability and growth (even though the Mac's market share is still only roughly half what it was in the Michael Spindler era).

Still, it's been obvious for years that Jobs was also serious about looking for the Next Big Thing for Apple, and since the introduction of the iPod in 2001, it's been increasingly clear that that product and its derivatives and related entries in the digital entertainment field would be It.

Jobs' keynote at the 2007 Macworld Expo yesterday marked a milestone in Apple's gradual shift from its original foundation to its new one. Not just because he announced that the company has dropped the word "Computer" from its name and will henceforward be known simply as Apple Inc., but also because, in a presentation that lasted more than two hours, opening a show ostensibly devoted to the Mac, he introduced no new Mac models and said not a word about the next major release of the Mac OS (Leopard). Even iLife '07 and iWork '07, which almost everyone expected to debut this week, were no-shows.

In fact, neither of the two products Jobs did announce, Apple TV and the iPhone, is specifically tied to the Mac; both were clearly designed from the ground up to work with Windows PCs as well as Mac OS systems. Yes, the iPhone runs a version of the Mac, but you couldn't tell that by looking at it, and most customers will probably never know. (Apple spokespeople wouldn't say yesterday what components and features of the Mac OS will be running on the iPhone; they did say that the phone is a "closed platform" and that they are not offering Mac application developers any tools to bring their programs to it.)

Goals and Jobs
In financial terms, Apple still derives more of its revenues from the Mac than from the iPod and related businesses, and my guess is that that will remain true for a while longer, especially in light of the popularity of its latest notebooks. But the gap has steadily narrowed - in Apple's preliminary results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006, ended September 30, 2006, the iPod accounted for revenues of $1,559 million and other music-related products and services for $452 million, or a total of $2,011 million, while desktop and portable CPU revenues added up to $2,213 million, peripherals and other hardware represented $297 million, and "software, services, and other sales" (apparently mostly Mac-related) produced another $316 million.

Jobs said Apple's iPhone goal for next year is to grab 1 percent of the worldwide mobile phone market, or about 10 million units. If the company reaches that target, or anything close to it, and if the Apple TV does as well as I think it will, it's likely that Apple's non-Mac revenues will finally surpass what it derives from Mac hardware and software next year.

Only then, I suppose, can it truly be said that Apple no longer depends mainly on the Mac. But symbolically, in terms of Apple's own sense of itself as well public perceptions of it, January 8, 2007, may well go down as the real turning point.

To my eye, Jobs looked not only healthy, but also happy. I can't remember a keynote where's he's grinned - not just smiled - as much as he did today. He didn't say "fantastic," "awesome," and "isn't that great?" as often today as he sometimes does, but maybe that's because he didn't need to. I got the sense that he's genuinely excited about the iPhone, that he really believes what he said about it ranking with the original Mac and iPod as one of those rare "products that changes everything."

Only the market can say whether that will turn out to be true, once it ships in June, but I suspect it will. Of course, maybe I got caught up in Jobs' notorious "reality distortion field," but I tend to be pretty jaded, and I found myself very impressed with what I saw of the iPhone. I've been fairly happy with my Palm Treo 650, but as I watched Steve demo the iPhone, I got in touch with a lot of frustrations that have, I now realize, been lying just beneath the surface of my consciousness - the bother of constantly reaching for and putting away the stylus, the challenge of typing on its tiny keyboard (after nearly a year, I still struggle to find the symbol and punctuation keys I want), and so on. I won't know for sure until I get to spend some time with an iPhone, but it looked to me that it will really feel a lot more natural to use.

(Wall Street apparently had the same reaction: Palm shares dropped 5.69 percent yesterday, while those of Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry, were off 7.85 percent. Apple's, by contrast, jumped 8.31 percent, and more after hours.)

How it is that Apple remains, after all these years, so much better at user interface than anyone else in the industry, even the smart folks at Palm, is something of a mystery to me, but it seems to be the case. (Is it really all Steve's doing?)

Concerns
While I'm betting the iPhone will be a huge hit, I do have a few critical concerns:

Closed platform
Apple seems to have built in all the essential functions most users will expect to find in a smartphone/Internet communicator, and of course they're all beautifully implemented. But the ease with which one can install additional applications on the Palm OS, and the enormous breadth of options available, are powerful attractions to that platform, and nowadays Microsoft's Windows Mobile (n/e Win CE, later Pocket PC) offers almost as much choice. I, for example, have loaded up my Treo with a Spanish dictionary and a verb conjugator, plus a flashcard app I use in my (off and on) efforts to learn conversational Arabic. I'm obviously not in any sense typical, but that's just the point - you can adapt an open platform to suit your own needs, however atypical they may be.

I may well end up springing for an iPhone (I'm already a Cingular user), but I'll have to think hard before I can bring myself to dump the Treo.

Video limitations
This issue won't influence my choice much, because I have never yet felt the urge to watch a movie on a handheld device, but on the show floor I heard some disappointment from a couple of users who'd been waiting for a widescreen video iPod - a product almost as much ballyhooed over the last few years as the iPhone. Their issue was not with the iPhone's screen or playback capabilities, which look super, but with its limited memory - 4GB or 8GB are plenty for a phone/PDA, and even for most users' music collections, but not for people who want to carry around a selection of movies and TV shows.

The obvious answer? A non-phone iPod combining an iPhone-like widescreen with a hard drive. It's hard to imagine that Apple won't be delivering such a product sometime soon - probably well before the iPhone ships in June.

(There's also no video-out jack on the iPhone. I presume, though, that Apple will include offer an iPhone dock with video out, like the Universal Dock for the current video iPod.)

Network exclusivity
At the keynote Cingular CEO Stan Sigman said his company and Apple have a "multiyear exclusive arrangement." That presumably means that the iPhone won't be available for other networks for years. Individuals (like me) who are in the habit of jumping from one carrier to another in search of real reliability and decent customer service might not mind switching in order to get an iPhone (personally, I happen to be a customer of Cingular already, for the moment), but for business users it's much more of problem.

Slow data network
The iPhone will use Cingular's EDGE network for data. EDGE, which stands, awkwardly, for Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution or Enhanced Data for Global Evolution, works on GSM networks; it's the successor to an older data technology called GPRS. Though it's often labeled a 3G technology, industry insiders have taken to describing it as 2.75G, because it's much slower than true 3G networks such as Verizon's or Sprint's EV-DO. Though it nominally supports data rates up to 384 Kbps for downloads, it apparently suffers from severe latency problems, and even Cingular claims real-life speeds of only 75-135 Kbps, and most of the reviews I've seen (I haven't used EDGE myself) say real-life speeds are usually close to the low end of that range, if not even slower. In other words, it's not significantly faster than a decent dial-up connection.

EDGE does have its advantages - as Jobs pointed out, it's the most widely deployed of the 3G wireless data networks. But Cingular itself has been scrambling to catch up to its competitors by rolling out a successor technology, called HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access), which the company markets as BroadbandConnect. It is said to offer average real-life download speeds in the range of 400 to 700 Kbps, and in recent months Cingular has rolled it out in most major metropolitan areas, including throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

In other words, EDGE is already yesterday's technology, and it will be even more so by the time the iPhone ships. Probably Apple had compelling reasons for adopting it anyway - battery life my be one, as HSDPA is said to consume considerably more power than EDGE - and there's no way to know at this point whether EDGE will feel slow in the iPhone's Safari-based web browser. But many users, especially the tech savvy, are bound to feel some qualms about shelling out $500 for a cutting-edge device that doesn't support state-of-the-art networking.

Pricing
Apple and Cingular announced that both will sell the iPhone with 4 GB of memory for $499 and an 8-GB version for $599. Jobs implied those prices would be with a 2-year contract. But neither company has disclosed details, such as what kind of service plans will be offered with it, how much they'll cost, what services will be included, and whether discounted package deals will be offered. Without answers to these questions, there's no way to know how much an iPhone will really cost you.

Looking up Cingular's current data plans doesn't provide any clear answer, either. I found, for example, a "Smartphone Connect" plan, for Windows Mobile phones, that offers unlimited data for a quite reasonable $19.99 per month. On the other hand, the company's "PDA Connect" plan with unlimited data costs a very different $44.99 per month, before a $5 discount if you have a Cingular voice plan.

The iPhone Name
Apple apparently intends to use iPhone as the official name for the product, not just as a codename or placeholder, as iTV turned out to be. That's a bit of a surprise, as Cisco seemed to have beaten Apple to the punch when its Linksys subsidiary last month announced a line of VoIP phones under the iPhone name. To make matters worse for Apple, Cisco put a ? after the iPhone name - a symbol companies are supposed to use only after they have successfully registered a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

It appears, though, that the companies have been negotiating over rights to the name, and a deal may be near, if one hasn't been reached already. CNET's News.com looked into the issue yesterday, and here's what they reported:

"In a written response to an inquiry from CNET News.com made while Jobs' speech was still going on, a Cisco representative said, 'It is our belief that with their announcement today, Apple intends to agree to the final document and public statements that were distributed to them last night.' Cisco expects to receive a signed agreement Tuesday, according to the statement."

Actually, let's hope Apple and Cisco are negotiating about more than the name. VoIP was conspicuously missing from the iPhone specs Apple announced yesterday, but I'll bet that if Steve offers a bunch of his iPhones free to Cisco executives, they could be persuaded to license their iPhones' VoIP technology as well as the name. Since the Apple phones will have Wi-Fi (plus Bluetooth) built in, it shouldn't be too hard to enable them to use Skype or other VoIP services for voice calls when within range of a Wi-Fi hotspot; among other advantages, this capability would help mitigate the high price of the iPhone. (In the keynote Jobs mentioned that the iPhone will automatically cut over from the Cingular network to Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet when it comes within range of a hotspot. I doubt that's possible in the middle of a voice call without dropping the connection, but VoIP support would be cool even without dynamic switching.)

[Cisco subsequently filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Apple over the "iPhone" name. -MacInTouch]

Apple TV
Glancing at the Apple booth on the Moscone Hall floor, you'd think the big news was the Apple TV - the big banner across the top of the booth and the display area across the front of it are dedicated to it. I had guessed Apple might announce a slew of features they hadn't disclosed before - I was hoping for TiVo-style digital video recording capabilities. As it turned out, however, there wasn't much new in yesterday's official announcement, beyond the new Apple TV moniker. To my disappointment, even the hard drive has not grown since Jobs previewed the device - then codenamed iTV - last September: It still holds only 40GB, which is rather modest for this day and age.

Personally, I have no interest in an Apple TV, because the product is clearly positioned as a companion for a widescreen TV, and I don't have a widescreen TV, nor any plans to get one. But I may be the only person in California in the latter category, and I expect the product to do very well. After all, if you're spending $2K or $3K on a monster screen, another $299 almost seems like a no-brainer.

iPod Eco
Not surprisingly, a very large percentage of the show floor was given over to the "iPod ecosystem" - the huge array of companies that makes skins, speakers, armbands, and other add-ons for the Apple music players. At the booth of one such company, Atech Flash Technology, off in the far southeast corner of the hall, I came across a product that's apparently been out for a while, but that I hadn't heard about before: the iCarta, a combination iPod "stereo dock" and bathroom tissue holder, which includes four "Integrated high performance moisture-free speakers" and place to hang your toilet paper. The standard version is $100; the iCarta +, with rechargeable battery, is $120, according to the guys at the booth
Capping literally years of speculation on perhaps the most intensely followed unconfirmed product in Apple's history -- and that's saying a lot -- the iPhone has been announced today. Yeah, we said it: "iPhone," the name the entire free world had all but unanimously christened it from the time it'd been nothing more than a twinkle in Stevie J's eye. Sweet, glorious specs of the 11.6 millimeter device include a 3.5-inch 480 x 320 touchscreen display with multi-touch support and a proximity sensor to turn off the screen when it's close to your face, 2 megapixel cam, 4GB or 8 GB of storage, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and A2DP, WiFi that automatically engages when in range, and quad-band GSM radio with EDGE. Perhaps most amazingly, though, it somehow runs OS X with support for Widgets, Google Maps, and Safari, and iTunes with CoverFlow out of the gate. A partnership with Yahoo will allow all iPhone customers to hook up with free push IMAP email. Apple quotes 5 hours of battery life for talk or video, with a full 16 hours in music mode -- no word on standby time yet. In a twisted way, this is one rumor mill we're almost sad to see grind to a halt; after all, when is the next time we're going to have an opportunity to run this picture? The 4GB iPhone will go out the door in the US as a Cingular exclusive for $499 on a two-year contract, 8GB for $599. Ships Stateside in June, Europe in fourth quarter, Asia in 2008.

It has been quite a long while since the rumors of Apple making a mobile phone first surfaced - ever since Apple acquired the www.iphone.org domain back in 1999. And straight after the Apple TV announcement, Apple CEO Steve Jobs put all eight years worth of speculation to rest by officially announcing the Apple iPhone. Unlike iTV, whose name was formally changed to Apple TV, the "iPhone" will really be called the iPhone. We know that you'll be too busy admiring its looks in the next few pages, so before you go gaga over the iPhone, here is a list of the most notable features of Apple's new obsession:-
Apple Computer Inc. announced today that it plans to launch a cell phone, dubbed the iPhone, that downloads and plays music, hoping to parlay Apple¡¯s success with the iPod media player into the larger, albeit more competitive, wireless business.

The announcement, by CEO Steve Jobs at the Macworld conference in San Francisco, puts to end months of speculation about the new products the Cupertino, Calif., company has on deck for 2007.

The iPhone has touch screen like some HTC phones. It will also offer built-in Wi-Fi, in addition to compatibility with the GSM/EDGE mobile voice and data standard.

It will also synch up with Apple¡¯s iTunes media software, allowing users to dump everything from contacts to music into the new phones. And rather than relying on a specialized mobile operating system, it will run on Apple¡¯s OS X.

AT&T Inc.¡¯s Cingular Wireless will be Apple¡¯s exclusive US carrier partner for the iPhone.

As part of this multi-year partnership, Apple and Cingular are working together to provide innovative new features to mobile phone users, such as iPhone¡¯s pioneering and unique Visual Voicemail, a first on any mobile phone in the world.

¡°By partnering with Apple, we are continuing our commitment to raising the bar for customers,¡± said Stan Sigman, Cingular¡¯s president and CEO. ¡°We think the iPhone is one of the most innovative devices ever created, and we look forward to letting our customers be the first in the world to experience the future of mobile phones.¡±

Visual Voicemail was co-developed by Apple and Cingular. Visual Voicemail makes voicemail as fast and convenient as email by allowing users to go directly to any of their voice messages without listening to any of the prior messages.

iPhone will be available in the US beginning in June 2007 in a 4GB model for USD 500 and an 8GB model for USD 600, and will work in combination with Apple¡¯s iTunes running on either a PC or Mac.

iPhone will be sold in the US through Apple¡¯s retail and online stores and through Cingular¡¯s retail and online stores.

Related News
Nokia N95 compares well with iPhone (13 Jan 2007)
Benefon flashes future devices (14 Nov 2006)
Apple and Motorola disappoint with iTunes phone (10 Sep 2005)
No commentsSAN FRANCISCO (Fortune) -- One of the most astonishing things about the new Apple iPhone, introduced yesterday by Steve Jobs at the annual Macworld trade show, is how Apple (Charts) managed to keep it a secret for nearly two-and-a-half years of development while working with partners like Cingular, Yahoo (Charts) and Google (Charts).

The iPhone, which won't be available in the United States until June, represents a close development partnership with America's largest wireless phone company (Cingular, now a part of AT&T (Charts), has 58 million subscribers), the world's largest e-mail service (Yahoo has a quarter-billion subscribers worldwide), and the world's dominant search company. Although speculation was rampant before the introduction that Apple would introduce a phone with iPod capabilities, actual details of the device were scarce. Even some senior Apple managers whispered during the keynote that they were seeing the iPhone for the first time, along with the 4,000 other Apple followers who crammed the Moscone meeting center here. Indeed, Apple's emphasis on secrecy may have influenced Apple's choice of Cingular to be the exclusive provider for iPhone service in the United States.

Apple: Hello, iPhone

Before Jobs revealed the iPhone at Macworld, Apple had to keep secrets from multiple companies and its own employees.

More from FORTUNE
How Florida cashed in on college football

Steve Madden on the block

Even 'safe' funds play with fire


FORTUNE 500
Current Issue
Subscribe to Fortune
Apple, legendary for the ferocity with which it safeguards new product announcements, had extraordinary challenges in keeping the iPhone under wraps for 30 months. Besides involving Cingular, Google and Yahoo, not to mention the unnamed Asian manufacturer, the project touched nearly every department within Apple itself, Jobs said, more so than in any previous Apple creation.

No one thinks Apple went to the draconian lengths of some rivals, like Hewlett-Packard (Charts), which obtained phone records, read e-mail, riffled through trash and otherwise spied on board members, employees and journalists in order to track down leaks of confidential company information. (See correction.)

However, Apple does make it clear to employees and business partners that they will be dismissed and possibly prosecuted for leaking company secrets. Apple has also played the bully role, suing bloggers and other independent journalists for posting purported advance information about unannounced Apple products.

Secrets - along with patents - protect Apple against competitive threats from foreign companies that have become expert at instant cloning of Apple's products and designs. But secrets also create a major buzz factor. As the giant Consumer Electronics Show opened this week in Las Vegas, where hundreds of the world's biggest gadget and gizmo companies show off their newest and greatest gear, everyone was talking about the company that was not there - Apple - and speculating on what Steve Jobs had up the sleeves of his trademark black mock turtleneck shirt.

Many of the country's top technology analysts and journalists flocked to the Las Vegas airport Monday night, on the first day of CES, to be able to see Jobs reveal his secrets here Tuesday morning. Although their applications will be crucial parts of the iPhone experience, neither Yahoo nor Google saw the actual phone until shortly before the keynote, Jobs said. The software development was done without needing to provide a hardware prototype. In some cases, Apple deliberately disguised software builds, known as "stacks", to keep programmers from seeing the actual interface.

The Cingular partnership was especially complicated. Cingular had been a partner when Apple made its first foray into the phone business, providing iTunes software for the ill-fated Motorola (Charts) ROKR, unleashed in 2005. The norm in the telecom business is for carriers to dictate to phone manufacturers which features and technologies they want to offer to their subscribers, which is anathema to Apple culture. But in the case of the ROKR - which I reviewed as the STNKER - it was Motorola's meddling that drove Apple nuts. When the ROKR finally emerged, clumsy and underpowered, Jobs held it up on stage with all the enthusiasm of a man holding a dead rat by the tail. Jobs came out of the ROKR experience even more determined to maintain total control over what he called the reinvention of the telephone.

An Apple phone is no slam-dunk
However, he said, he enjoyed working with Cingular. And apparently the sentiment was mutual. Two years ago, Jobs and Cingular's chief executive, Stan Sigman, got together to forge a multiyear pact to work together on the iPhone. The Apple phone didn't even exist as a sketch at that point, but apparently Sigman trusted that Jobs and Apple would deliver on their promise to revolutionize the mobile handset. And Apple trusted Cingular not to meddle in the hardware or feature design. "They let Apple be Apple," one Apple executive said.

Cingular worked with Apple software developer on breakthrough features like visual voicemail - the ability to see a list of voicemail messages in a list and choose to listen to them in any order, instead of sequentially, as most carriers require today - while Apple focused on what it does best, the close integration of elegant hardware design with powerful but simple-to-use software. Even so, Apple didn't show Cingular the final iPhone prototype until just weeks before this week's debut. In some cases, Apple crafted bogus handset prototypes to show not just to Cingular executives, but also to Apple's own workers.

Meanwhile, Jony Ive, Apple's design guru, was refining the sleek, final design. At the Macworld keynote, with Cingular's Sigman on stage with him, Jobs hinted again that the exclusive, multiyear partnership with Cingular would yield more phones that just the two iPhone models unveiled today. (The two are basically identical: A $499 device with four gigabytes of internal memory, and a $599 version with eight gigabytes.)

In the end, Apple decided to reveal the iPhone several months ahead of its official June launch because it could not keep the secret any more. Apple has to file with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the permits needed to operate the iPhone, and once those public filings are made, Apple has no control over the release of that information. So, Jobs said, he made the decision to have Apple tell the world about its new phone, rather than the FCC.

Pillow talk was a challenge at the other end of the spectrum. Keeping secrets from loved ones is especially hard. Those stresses were amplified by the frantic race over the past half year to get the iPhone ready for launch. As Macworld approached, dinners were missed, kids were not tucked in properly, and family plans were disrupted, especially over the holidays. And for what? "Sorry, that's classified" is not considered a satisfactory answer in many households when Mom or Dad misses the school play or the big wedding anniversary dinner.

Phil Schiller, Apple's head of marketing and one of the few Apple executives involved with the project from the start, said he had to keep the iPhone development secret even from his wife and children. When he left home for the official unveiling yesterday, Schiller said, his son asked, "Dad, can you finally tell us now what you've been working on?" Jobs paused during the keynote to acknowledge the strain and sacrifices that the past months have brought not just for the employees who kept the secrets so well, but also for their families. "We couldn't have done it without you," he said, with obvious sincerity.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described HP's monitoring of employee, director and journalist communications. CNNMoney.com regrets the error. (Return to story)

During yesterday's 2007 Macworld keynote address, Steve Jobs unveiled the Apple iPhone.

The iPhone combines three products into one small and lightweight handheld device:

Revolutionary mobile phone
Widescreen iPod with touch controls
Breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching
The iPhone introduces an entirely new user interface, based on a large multi-touch display and software that lets you control everything with just your fingers.

The Widescreen iPod

Enjoy all your content ¡ª including music, audiobooks, videos, TV shows, and movies ¡ª on a 3.5-inch widescreen display and touch controls.
Sync your content from the iTunes library on your PC or Mac and access it with the touch of a finger.
Scroll through your songs, artists, albums, and playlists with just a flick of a finger.
View album artwork and use Cover Flow to browse your music library by album artwork for the first time on an iPod.
Watch TV shows and movies from the iTunes Store on a pocketable device. Just tap the touch controls for play/pause, chapter forward/backward, and volume.
Look for the iPhone coming this June.
The Apple TV (previously code-named "iTV") will be shipping in February, and contains everything previously announced and a little more. It has an internal hard disk and syncs with one Mac and can accept streaming content from up to five others.

Then the iPhone is announced, and the markets go wild. Rim (makers of the BlackBerry) and Palm stock plummeted as Apple stock soared. Listening to the speech, it is easy to think that this isn't really a phone, but a new Mac in a tiny form factor. It runs OS X, the operating system that powers my iMac and my wife's MacBook! It's got a lot of custom software and an intriguing touch interface, as well as some other nice bells and whistles, but isn't it really a full-fledged hand-held computer?

No, it's not.

Reality

First let's talk about what wasn't announced. No new software whatsoever. No iLife '07, no iWork '07, no OS X "Leopard," nothing. Does this mean we won't see these updates? No, it means that this show was about one thing only: the iPhone.

There were other brief announcements. Jobs did counter the rumor that the iTunes Store had seen a slowdown in sales. It may have seen a slowdown in traffic ¡ª which is what the rumor was based on ¡ª but sales continue to rise steadily. Jobs also announced the Paramount partnership, and as the first movie company in which Jobs doesn't hold 7% of the stock, that's a good sign. Jobs also provided a bit more detail ¡ª and a release date ¡ª for the Apple TV, which he announced last year. But that's it. Everything else ¡ª eighty minutes of the 108-minute speech ¡ª was about the iPhone.

It's interesting to speculate about the choices that went into this announcement, but so far, that's all it is ¡ª speculation. Would Jobs have announced Paramount if he had not needed to address the iTunes slowdown rumor? Would the Apple TV have made the schedule had they not pre-announced it last year? Did they pre-announce it last year because they weren't ready to announce anything else?

The reality is this: no shipping products were announced. None. OS X "Leopard" is still a future event. iWork and iLife updates are still future events. Apple TV won't ship until next month. The iPhone won't ship until June ¡ª assuming all goes well between now and then.

The reality is this: the iPhone is not a 3G phone. Jobs announced that Apple intends to make 3G phones in the future, but not yet.

The reality is this: despite the claim that the iPhone runs "OS X," reports from Time (page 2) and Jupiter Research say that you won't be able to download or run standard OSX applications from anyone but Apple. Sure, you need a special version of Safari to browse the web on a tiny screen, but surely there are plenty of developers champing at the bit to get their apps running on the iPhone!

We don't yet know what processor is running inside the iPhone, nor how stripped-down the operating system is. Is it "OS X" like "Windows CE" is "Windows," which is to say in name only? How many different processors does OS X run on now? Even the technical specifications at the official iPhone web site are sparse and not very technical. Presumably more details will slowly be released now that the secret is out, especially as the FCC approval process progresses. Since the iPhone isn't yet shipping, there's actually plenty of time for some of the details to change, too.

Will we eventually see the iPhone work with any carriers other than Cingular? Jobs described them as Apple's exclusive partner. It sounds as if Cingular had to do some work to enable the email-like view of voicemail that is a strong selling point of the iPhone. Since you won't be able to buy an iPhone without a Cingular contract, the $499 sticker price probably reflects substantial subsidies from Cingular already.

On the stock market, RIMM and PALM have been hurting since the announcement, while AAPL is soaring. But will the iPhone really take over the market from these "smartphones?" The forced coupling with Cingular could hurt it here, though many people in the early-adopters market won't balk at the expense.

One other big question: how will the iPhone sync? To succeed, the iPhone will need to sync with Microsoft Exchange running on Windows, something Steve Jobs didn't mention. It's hard to believe Apple doesn't know that, however, so for now I'll assume that Jobs didn't want to mention Microsoft during his big speech. I don't think syncing with iTunes is going to cut it.

Tidbits

At 42:48 into the keynote address, to demonstrate the iPod features of the iPhone, Steve Jobs chooses the Beatles. Given the long history of legal issues between Apple Records and Apple Computer (now Apple), this is either a sign of thawing relations or a serious poke in the eye.

At the time of Steve Jobs' keynote speech, Apple and Cisco hadn't yet signed paperwork on an agreement allowing Apple to use the name "iPhone," currently in use for some Linksys products. The paperwork was in Apple's hands, however, and has presumably been signed by now.

The Future

As the Time article reveals, initial development on the new touch interface was done for a possible Mac tablet computer, presumably one better than the third-party ModBook announced this week. So far what we've seen is a very small and constrained Mac tablet ¡ª the iPhone. Will the next-generation iMacs or MacBooks make the mouse and keyboard optional?

Will we see hard-drive based iPods later this year or next year with the same touch interface, minus the phone features? If the iPhone price reflects major underwriting by Cingular, it could be a while before the multi-touch interface makes it into lower-end iPods.

The Bottom Line

For software releases and iPod updates, we'll have to wait. But not long, I think.

The iPhone is one of most beautiful products I've ever seen, a product that could only come from Apple. Two hundred patents notwithstanding, every other company with any connection to the market is now rushing to see how much they can do to make their own iPhone knockoffs. I suspect Apple will be able to keep ahead of the competitors with the iPhone, though, just as they have with the iPod. The iPhone will be a huge success.

But while it's a marvelous and unique combination of iPod and phone, with Internet features, it's not yet a handheld computer in any real sense. It has built-in Wi-Fi, but can't download and run programs. It's a marvelous idea that this hand-held device is running OS X, but until it's more open ¡ª either officially or unofficially ¡ª it's just an idea.

Phillip Winn is the Technical Director for BC Magazine, which leaves him far too little time to write, which makes every article he writes that much more precious.
Keep reading for information and comments on this article, and add some feedback of your

3 4 5 6 7