By Justin Greer
Every once in a while a new invention comes along that shocks and astounds everyone.
Fire and the wheel were awfully important to cavemen, and the crossbow was once said to be the most useful weapon ever created. The printing press, the Internet, and the telephone have allowed people to communicate rapidly and effectively. Sliced bread, for some reason, is a standard by which all other innovations are compared.
Enter the iPhone. This new handheld device, conceived by the ever-creative Steve Jobs of Apple Inc., combines an iPod with a phone, a camera, and a wireless network – and pretty much everything else imaginable. And it’s not like all the features were thrown together just to make the iPhone more marketable – it has a five-hour video battery and 16 hours for music, a two megapixel camera, e-mail and Bluetooth options, a microphone/headphone combination, and iTunes synchronization.
The touchscreen is highly sensitive and adapts itself to the user’s preferences, an ambient light sensor adjusts the brightness of the screen, and an accelerometer changes the screen orientation based on which way the iPhone is held. Simply put, it’s an all-in-one handheld device that you can carry anywhere and use with ease.
The prices are reasonable as well, considering everything included. A 4-gigabyte model is offered for $499 and an 8-GB for $599, which includes a two-year contract with Cingular. If Apple could figure out a way to include an automatic bread-slicing function, the iPhone would have it all: affordability, usefulness and availability.
The iPhone will be released in June of this year, and can be purchased from the Apple Store and Cingular Wireless.
