Because geek is cool and clever

Finally the iPhone arrives (sorta) January 10, 2007

Last week Apple chairman, Steve Jobs, made his annual Macworld keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in America.

As is Apple’s custom, the event was hyped beyond belief.

The company keeps information on its new products and services incredibly secret and in the past has tried to sue websites that have even attempted to leak anything.

There are, of course, good reasons for this fanaticism in starving the tech industry of any early information.

Firstly it sends the rumour mill into a frenzied overdrive (apparently there’s a legal difference between rumoured speculation and outright leaking) and secondly it ensures maximum eyeballs and coverage of Jobs’ eventual speech which, it has to be said, it always delivered with a kind of coolness and quiet enthusiasm that the other Steve (Ballmer, chairman of Microsoft) could well learn a lesson or several from.

So what was this year’s big news?

Well, speculation about new video iPods has been around for a while but not quite as long as the ‘legendary before it actually exists’ iPhone – Apple’s entry into the mobile phone market.

Both products were announced – sort of. Apple has merged the two.

The new iPhone is, in spite of the unparalleled hype it received, is quite an extraordinary looking device that combines a phone, a widescreen video iPod and a ‘mobile internet communicator’ in a unit with no physical buttons that comes in at just 11mm – that’s under half an inch in old money – thick. Call it hyperbole if you will, but it really does look like something from the future. It’s almost impossible to believe that so much stuff can be crammed into something so thin.

The internet side of things includes email, web browser and Google maps. This thing runs a stripped down version of Mac OS X so there’s also support for Widgets.

It’s Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled, stores and plays music, widescreen movies and pictures and includes an onscreen QWERTY keyboard for those all-important text messages.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that it’s not available here until the end of the year which might just give you enough time to save for it.

At a US price of $500 for the 4GB version and $600 for its 8GB sister, you can probably expect similar figures when those prices are converted to sterling – and that’s with a contract.

More at Apple’s website.