Here are the details: a 4.8-ounce palm-size slab dominated by a bright “multitouch” screen you control with your fingers. It runs on the Macintosh operating system, so it has sophisticated e-mail and Web browsing, along with stuff like Google Maps. It lets you handle voice mail like e-mail, choosing which message you want to hear. It’s got a revamped iPod interface that makes the most of the iTunes ability to let you watch movies and TV. And with the classic Apple design flair–the pyro-technics of austerity–it’s gorgeous. On the downside, it’s got only five hours of battery life, and it’s costly: $499 for four gigabytes of flash memory, $599 for 8GB, with a mandatory two-year AT&T wireless contract.
Using exotic finger tricks like double tapping, swiping and “pinching,” Apple has simplified the knotty task of handling e-mail, personal organizing, the Web and wrangling a media library. Jobs is shooting for 1 percent of the billion-plus mobile phones expected to be sold in 2008. Already, plenty of people seem eager to have an iPhone (or whatever) when it ships this June.
