Interaction is achieved through touching the screen, not with a stylus, but with fingers. This has allowed Apple to create more advanced forms of touch interaction that includes multi-point gestures (for example, zoom in on a section of a web-page by pinching the screen with 2 fingers).
Features
- accelerometer (to detect orientation)
- Wi-Fi
- Bluetooth
- stripped down version of OSX
- iPod music, video and picture playback
- touch-screen based controls
- proximity sensor so screen and headphone audio turn off when device is brought to your face
- intuitive phone systems for calling and managing address book
- A ton of PDA software
- web browser, Google maps, full POP and IMAP e-mail support
- syncs with iTunes
- glass surface to reduce smears and scratches
- 8GB - $399 | 16GB - $499
When the iPhone first launched there were two versions available, but due to strongly slanted sales the 4GB version has been discontinued with the 8GB retailing for $399. This price is actually $200 less than the $599 they launched with and dropped the price only three months later. In February 2008 Apple released a 16GB version for $499.
8 hours of battery life for talk time, 7 hours for watching movies, and 24 hours for audio playback with 250 hours of standby time.
Third parties can provide iPhone applications through the Safari interface. The details are still unclear, but developers can use standard website coding conventions to interact with the iPhone in a secure and reliable manner.
iTunes support
Using the iPhone's wireless connectivity, or Edge data network users can connect to the Wi-Fi iTunes music store. This allows people to purchase and download music directly from their iPhone without a computer. Purchased music automatically syncs with your computer when the iPhone is reconnected.
iPhone users are also given an extra option in the iTMS through the purchase of custom ring tones. Ring tones can be purchased for 99 cents on top of the price of the song. If you already own the song then you only have to pay an extra 99 cents, but if you don't then you have to purchase both for $1.98. The ring tones are not premade, instead you can create your own snippet of the song to use as a ring tone at a maximum length of 30 seconds. As of this writing 500,000 songs are available for ring tones.
iPhone Service Plans
There are three plans available with minor differences in features. Each plan combines voice and data into one price, with all plans featuring unlimited data. See the chart below for details.
