The iphone
The iPhone is a range of high-end multimedia enabled smartphones designed and marketed by Apple Inc, and first released in 2007. The handset itself functions as many different things, and not just a phone. The iPhone acts as a camera phone, which itself enables the user to use visual voicemail to leave visual messages for friends and family. The smartphone also acts a highly intuitive portable media player (which is essentially a phone equivalent of the iPod), allowing users to download their entire music collection onto their iPhone, and enjoy music on the go. The interface is designed around the large touchscreen that dominates the front of the phone, and which includes a virtual keyboard rather than a physical one. Every application or menu in the iPhone can be accessed by simply touching the screen, and that includes Internet browsing and the App Store. The App Store is Apple’s very own application store, where users can download and buy applications to use on their own phones, these apps include games, reference apps, GPS navigation, social networking apps, and so on, and the App Store currently has well over 200,000 apps, all approved by Apple – the number is growing by the day. Apple first announced the iPhone on January 9th 2007, after speculation online became rife as to the final design of the handset. The very first iPhone was introduced to the United States market on June 29th 2007, and began to sell extremely quickly. It gained much press coverage, and Time Magazine named it the ‘Invention of the Year’. Apple, refusing to rest on their laurels, moved quickly to release a new and improved version, almost immediately, and on July 11th 2008, the iPhone 3G was born, supporting faster 3G data speeds via UMTS with 3.6 Mbps HSDPA and assisted GPS (which ostensibly meant users could download music, apps, and videos, much quicker). The iPhone 3GS was released in the US, Canada, and six further European countries on June 19th 2009, and featured improved performance all round, with a higher resolution camera (with video recording capability), and voice control. The latest product to come from the apple camp is the iphone 4, find out the latest mobile news at dialaphone.