A historic achievement...

With all the bad news happening in my own life, I thought I'd talk about the new Apple iPhone to get my mind off things.

This truly does appear to be revolutionary. As Steve Jobs stated in his Macworld keynote address, many companies such as Palm, RIM Blackberry, and Nokia have tried to come up with the ultimate smartphone, but have yet to blend all the ingredients together into the perfect device. As feature packed as my Blackberry Pearl is, it still doesn't play music/video all that easily, the browser is limited and somewhat slow, and it takes a bit of learning curve to figure out how to navigate through the whole thing.

Time magazine has a feature about the development of the iPhone that started almost three years ago as an experiment into tablet PCs. It's a testament to Steve Jobs' intuition that he saw the emerging product could be so much more by essentially packing a minicomputer into a phone.

Some of the truly unique features of the iPhone that made me want to get up and applaud:

• The touchscreen interface: This maybe the first step into consumer interfaces like you'd see in movies like Minority Report. The iPhone only requires the use of any of your 10 fingers, and allows intuitive gestures of pinching or spreading two fingers to zoom in or out. They even came up with a new screen material so your greasy mitts don't dirty it up too much. When you think about it, Apple really has been behind some of the most revolutionary interfaces in recent history. The mouse and the first Macintosh, touchscreens using styluses with their short-lived Newton, the scroll wheel of the iPod...it's amazing that other companies with endless buckets of cash like Microsoft have never come up with similar ideas. Unlike them, Apple always seems to start with the interface on their devices, and makes the technological features run from there. Seems to be a great development model.
  
• OS X: A full featured operating system within a handheld device? I'm still trying to figure out how they fit that in this thing. Unlike other smartphones, the iPhone's inclusion of OS X allows it to run native applications and internet browsers. Who needs a tablet PC when you've got this? It even allows for the use of Cover Flow in iTunes on the device.
  
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor: Apple somehow incorporated an accelerometer into the phone which detects whether you've got it propped upright or sideways, and automatically adjusts pictures to display in portrait or landscape mode. And once you actually get a call, a sensor detects when it's close to your ear and turns off the screen both to save batteries and to make sure you don't inadvertently touch a virtual button with your face. Just another two examples of features that probably no one ever thought of, but makes life all that much easier.
• Virtual voice mail: Apple has earned some major respect, so much so that Cingular partnered up with them sight unseen, and allowed them to configure a new way to look at voice mail. Instead of having to listen to all of your messages in sequential order, you can now see what messages you have, and pick the ones you want to listen to individually. The way Apple was able to get Cingular to cater to their needs rather than the other way around may change the entire relationship between cell phone makers and service providers forever.
  
• Overall design: As typical of any Apple device, the iPhone is minimalistic and pretty. I've yet to understand why no other company seems to get this. Apple always pays attention to even the most minute details.
  

My only gripes:

• Their partnership with Cingular is a bit limited by the fact that they rely on an EDGE network for data transmission, which is far inferior in speed compared to the 3G networks of Verizon and Sprint. And considering the pace that new iPods seem to come out at, having to lock into a 2 year contract seems to put you at risk of being behind the curve when updates get released.
  
• 4GB and 8 GB are OK for music, but it doesn't look like the introductory models will carry enough storage to have a lot of TV shows or movies stored on them. That said, flash memory continues to grow by leaps and bounds, so its conceivable that a 30 GB+ models will some out in the future.
  

When you watch Steve Jobs run through a demo of this thing, it looks like the most easy and intuitive device I've ever seen. Every year, when a new smartphone or PDA comes out, I pull out my wish list for the ultimate handheld device and find the latest gadgets still lacking. This may be the first time I can't say that. I truly am giddy just thinking about the iPhone and can't wait to see one in the flesh when it's released in June.

Wow! I haven't thought about my personal woes for the entire time I was writing this. I love my blog.