iPhone combines three products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching — into one small and lightweight handheld device. iPhone also introduces an entirely new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and pioneering new software, letting you control everything with just your fingers. So it ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, completely redefining what you can do on a mobile phone.

The price: $499 for the 4Gig model and $599 for the 8Gig model. Damn!

You'll most likely be able to get it on some contract. Pretty kewl though.

Africa off the screen of hip new Apple phone
By Lesley Stones, Business Day, 11 January 2006

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THE sleek, sexy and expensive iPhone unveiled by Apple this week will find a ready market of hip and affluent customers in SA — if it ever reaches the country.


The device that CEO Steve Jobs describes as reinventing the phone sent Apple’s shares soaring to an all-time closing high of $92,57.

The reaction came despite a five-month wait before it reaches US consumers in June. It will only reach Europe at the end of the year and Asia in 2008. Africa does not even feature as a mid-term target market, and the iPhone may not reach these shores at all.

“I have no idea what’s going to happen,” said RJ van Spaandonk, a director of the Core Group, Apple’s distributor in SA. “This is an announcement everyone was expecting but there is nothing I can tell you about whether we will get it. I honestly don’t know.”

The iPhone has no keyboard and is controlled by using a high resolution touch screen that runs the length of the product.

Users can scroll through the menus with their finger, and an on-screen keypad will appear when needed.

It plays music and videos, has a built-in camera, can download songs and television programmes from Apple’s iTunes online store, and it connects to the internet using wireless technology.

Jobs hopes the iPhone will become the next must-have gadget.

He describes it as a “leapfrog” product that blends a wide screen iPod, a cellphone and an internet communication device.

“Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” he said.

Apple will probably never catch up to Nokia, Motorola and other manufacturers, but Jobs aims to sell 10-million units in 2008 to win 1% of the market.

About 957-million cellphones were sold last year, although smart phones accounted for only a tiny fraction.

With no African debut on the diary, local fashionistas will have to import the device themselves. Many people will probably do so, said Nashua Mobile MD Mark Taylor.

About 6% of Nashua’s 600000 subscribers use a smart phone, with the percentage growing every month. They pay R5000 to R8000 for a handset, so an entry level iPhone at $499 was well priced, Taylor said.


Taylor believes 2007 will be the watershed year for using data services via cellphone, and he predicts that up to 10% of subscribers will be using a smart phone by the end of the year.

iPhone would not hurt rival phone manufacturers as the market was growing for them all.

Cellular providers upbeat about iPhone
By MyADSL, 12 January 2007

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Cellular providers Vodacom, Virgin Mobile and CellC are cautiously optimistic about Apple’s latest gadget, the iPhone.


Apple recently introduced its mobile phone to the market, and despite a legal wrangle with Cisco over the iPhone name, it is creating waves in the mobile phone arena.

Apple will find it tough to compete against mobile phone powerhouses like Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson, but the millions of iPod and Apple faithful across the world will hardly be able to resist adding this new phone to their iPod and Mac collection.

Local providers optimistic

Local cellular providers are cautiously upbeat about the new phone from Apple. There is currently no clear time for release locally or in Africa, but cellular providers are none-the-less taking note.

“Vodacom will continue to offer our subscribers the very latest in technology and looks forward to trialing the new iPhone when it launches with a view to introducing it to our subscribers. It is great to see additional competition in the handset arena and an easy to use handset will be welcomed,” said Vodacom’s Dot Field.

Virgin mobile believes that their market will definitely find value in the new iPhone.

“This is definitely the kind of mobile phone that fits our market. As a leading lifestyle mobile brand, Virgin Mobile is quite excited about Apple iPhone. Like its iPod Nano and iPod video cousins, the iPhone is slim and sleek,” said Nicholas Maweni from Virgin Mobile.

“When it becomes available, Virgin Mobile iPhone users will be able to scroll through songs, artists, albums, and play lists with just a flick of a finger. One cool new feature of this function is the display of album artwork – Our users will soon be able to use Cover Flow to browse music library by album artwork for the first time on an iPod,” Maweni said.

CellC is more cautious about Apple’s latest product.

“As with all new products that are introduced to the market, Cell C would discuss with the manufacturer and determine if the product fitted into our business strategy as well as catering for our client profile and then a decision would be taken on whether we would make it available,” said Vanashree Pillay, Executive Head for Corporate Communications at CellC.

MTN did not respond to requests for comment.

Here's are 20 unanswered questions about the Apple iPhone:

1. How much will it cost to own an iPhone? We already know that the cheapest iPhone will be far more expensive than the most costly Cingular phone to date. But what will the monthly service cost? What will the data plans cost? Will the Yahoo e-mail push option be extra?

2. What will be the "unlocked" iPhone price? Prices quoted by Jobs--$599 for the 8GB model and $499 for the 4GB phone--are the discounted prices that require a two-year Cingular contract. Will it even be possible to buy an iPhone without a wireless contract and without a specific wireless carrier?

3. How much will it cost to replace a lost or damaged iPhone? Let's say you shell out $600 for an iPhone, and then two weeks later you drop and destroy it. How much will it cost to replace? $600? $1200? More? When you buy a phone with a contract, you nearly always get a huge discount because you're signing up for the service. $150 phones are free. $200 are $50. The BlackBerry Pearl, for example, is $200 with the contract--but if you replace it, the new one is $400, because you don't get a discount. How much will replacement insurance cost? Wireless carriers offer third-party insurance to cover this high replacement cost, usually a few dollars per month added to your cell-phone bill. Will the insurance for the iPhone cost $5 or $15 per month? We don't know. If it's $15 per month, for example, that adds $540 to the price of the phone over three years. Not trivial.

4. How fast is the iPhone? Touch-screen devices are often ruined by a delay when you press the on-screen, virtual buttons. Apple may solve this problem with its first-release product, but if it doesn't, a persistent lag will degrade the user experience. Jobs said that the "iPhone runs OS X" and "desktop-class" applications. But will the OS and applications provide desktop-class performance? If so, Apple will have solved another problem nobody has ever been able to solve.

5. What did Jobs mean when he said the "iPhone runs OS X"? Is it the "core" of OS X with a new mobile interface? Or is the "core" new, with OS X-like interface code on top? Jobs already hinted that special iPhone applications--not standard desktop applications--will run on the phone. What is the iPhone's operating system, really?

6. How well will the iPhone sync with Windows applications? Jobs said the iPhone will sync with your desktop-based data--contacts, calendars, photos, notes, bookmarks, and e-mail accounts--but gave no specifics beyond the fact that iTunes will serve as the synchronization application. Will it sync seamlessly with Microsoft Outlook? Lotus Notes? Other personal information manager (PIM) and e-mail applications? Which ones? How well will all this work?

7. Will businesses be able to use the iPhone? Jobs dissed Treo handhelds, BlackBerry units, and other devices for their lack of usability. But those companies spend enormous resources on building back-end infrastructure. Those systems enable businesses to roll out programs that meet company objectives around regulatory compliance, data security, cost reduction, and more. The success of those products is based in part on their enterprise and business solutions. How ready is iPhone for business?

8. Will the iPhone support Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents? Jobs said you can synchronize the iPhone with e-mail--and he even pointed to IMAP support, including Microsoft Exchange--but what about attachments? Without support for standard office documents, the iPhone is a nonstarter for most business users.

9. Will you be able to use your iPhone as a modem for your laptop? If not, this could be a showstopper for many traveling businesspeople.

10. Will the iPhone scratch or peel? Previous Apple products, including some iPods and notebooks, had serious problems with scratching and peeling. People use and abuse their cell phones even more than they do other devices. Will Apple make the iPhone rugged enough to avoid embarrassing blog write-ups about scratching, peeling, or other materials defects? Will the iPhone be too slippery to use without dropping?

11. Will the iPhone be called the iPhone? Jobs said yes, but that was news to Cisco, the company that owns the trademark. Cisco said Wednesday that it is suing Apple over the name. It's possible that the two companies will arrive at an agreement, but to date the name is still up in the air.

12. Will people hate the on-screen iPhone keyboard experience? I got rid of my Palm Treo mainly because the keys were hard to type with--too small for my fingers. The iPhone keys are about the same size as the Treo's, but software, with no tactile feedback. The keyboard looked great in the demo. But what will it be like to use it every day?

13. Can you use the iPhone to make VoIP calls? Using your iPhone over a Wi-Fi connection to make, say, Skype calls would be an obviously beneficial feature. Will Apple allow it? Will Cingular?

14. Will people accept iPhone's slow Internet connection? While other phones are embracing 3G, the iPhone's EDGE support gives users a disappointing 2.5G experience. Jobs showed the Web page of the New York Times--how long will that page take to load? For people already using 3G on their phones, going back to a slower device may be too much to ask.

15. Will third-party software vendors be able to create applications for the iPhone? If not, why not? If so, what are they?

16. Will iPhone's single-carrier model wreck the product for most users? Some U.S. cities don't have any Cingular coverage. In other cities, such as New York, Cingular coverage is inferior to that of competitors. By limiting the iPhone to Cingular only, will Apple turn away the majority of its potential iPhone customers?

17. Will there be any way to wirelessly share files with the iPhone? Like the Microsoft Zune, the iPhone supports Wi-Fi. But unlike the Zune, iPhone Wi-Fi is for connecting to the Internet through wireless hotspots or networks only. You won't be able to connect peer-to-peer. Will Apple be able to turn on this capability later? Will the company at least enable file sharing over the Internet?

18. Will the iPhone kill sales of iPods? Apple has a good thing going with its profitable iPod business. But will people stop buying iPods as they wait for an iPhone? Will investors conclude that Jobs's keynote was a big mistake if iPod profits go down the drain for two quarters?

19. Will Apple be able to fill iPhone orders accurately? No doubt the iPhone is very expensive to manufacture, and, unlike the iPod, is a very complex device, electronically. In the first year of the device's release, Apple could very easily overbuild, making far more than it can sell in a given period of time, or underbuild, failing to keep up with demand and creating long waits and frustrated customers.

20. Will the iPhone really "change the world"? The iPod "changed the world" because everyone bought one. But will the iPhone's price, Cingular-only support, lack of business usability, and other factors really make the iPhone just a niche luxury toy for the rich?

The iPhone vision Jobs unveiled was bold, risky, and amazing. Now we can only wait and see what Silicon Valley's master magician really has up his sleeve. If Jobs and Apple can produce the right answers to these 20 questions, they'll make a believer out of me.