The iPhone name has been used for a number of products, but is best known as the smartphone
line released in 2007 by Cupertino, California-based Apple Inc. Apple’s
iPhone popularized the use of touchscreens as a primary interface for a
mobile phone.
Beyond the aspects standard in most smartphones such as Internet
connectivity and messaging, the iPhone’s features can be divided into
three main groups: hardware, media, and applications.
The iPhone’s hardware has been one of its biggest draws. Based
around touchscreen technology, the iPhone does not have a keypad,
instead, a virtual keyboard and keypad are displayed on the touchscreen
when required. The removal of the physical keypad lets the iPhone’s
screen be much larger than that of similar-sized mobile phones. An
accelerometer allows the iPhone to react and change its screen display
depending on if it is being viewed horizontally or vertically. The phone
also has an internal flash drive to store data. Other hardware features
include a digital camera, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, speaker, Wi-Fi™ connectivity, Bluetooth®, and, in later models, A-GPS.
Besides just being a mobile phone, the iPhone is also a fully-functioning media player.
Songs can be transferred to its internal memory from most home
computers as well as the iTunes store, allowing entire music collections
to be portable. Photographs and documents can be viewed on the device’s
large color screen, as can full-motion video.
Applications are technically how the iPhone works as a media player
and web browser; the term, however, is also a general one that describes
the downloadable programs the iPhone can run. The applications are
extremely varied. There are applications which allow the iPhone to act
like an ocarina,
show the phone’s location on a map via A-GPS, randomly choose local
restaurants for the user, play games, or just display interesting
images. Applications are developed both by Apple Inc. and third-parties.
The iPhone is usually sold “locked," that is, only able to use the
cellular phone service of a specified provider. In the United States of
America, for instance, that provider is AT&T. Some countries do not
allow locked cell phones to be sold, so unlocked versions of the iPhone
are available legally in those areas. As well, hackers have been able to
unlock the iPhone with limited success for use on unauthorized
networks.
Apple Inc. was not the first company to release a product called an
iPhone. In 1998, InfoGear Technology Corporation sold an internet
appliance that combined telephone and internet capabilities. As well,
Cisco released a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) iPhone through its Linksys division in 2006.
Photo courtesy from: gsmarena.com & http://payasyougoiphone.net/
Photo courtesy from: gsmarena.com & http://payasyougoiphone.net/