Product Review: The Apple IPhone

The Apple iPhone probably needs no introduction. The iPhone is a phone, a music player, a video player, a camera, and an internet device all in one. Steve Jobs predicts that Apple will sell over 10 million iPhones by 2008. It is not an overly ambitious goal, considering how much hype the iPhone has received since it was first announced.

Phone: The iPhone is not your ordinary phone. Of course not, it's an Apple. It has some lovely and innovative features that make using a cell phone a little more user friendly. It has a versatile touch screen that adds simplicity to browsing through contacts and messages. My favorite feature, is the ability to check voice mails in any order. For example, you could listen to a voice mail you received a week ago before a voice mail you received yesterday, or vise versa.

Music and Video Player: The Apple iPhone works just like your iPod. Simply use the touch screen to access all of your MP3's, movies, and TV shows the same way you would with your iPod. Oh, and when you're watching videos, just turn the iPhone sideways and it becomes a widescreen player.

Camera: The iPhone has a built in 2 megapixel camera. If you've read any of my digital camcorder reviews, than you know how I feel about cameras that are integrated into devices that are not actually cameras. Nevertheless, it is still a nifty thing to have on your phone, and has pretty much become an industry standard for mobile devices. You should still buy an actual digital camera if you want to take good pictures.

Internet Device: The iPhone has real web browsing capabilities. As a matter of fact, it even comes with the latest version of Safari. I have tried a lot of PDA's and cell phones that offer internet access, and have always found them to be very difficult and frustrating to use. The built-in Safari browser makes it very easy to visit websites and check your email.

The Apple iPhone ships on June 29, 2007. It will be interesting to see what affect the iPhone has on it's competitors and on the mobile industry, in general. The iPhone is estimated to cost about $499.99, but Steve Jobs has said that Apple intends on lowering the price each year. As badly as I want to own one of these, I will probably wait a year or two. For more information on the iPhone visit http://apple.com/iphone.