Wow! What a big deal. I hae an iPhone 4G and love it. Absolutely love it. I can check and send email
from anywhere. It's fast too. Within seconds I can check the market, the weather, look something up. And I love, absolutely love the "advantaged" key pad and not those tiny little keys. I'm excited to see the new version of the iPhone. But, sounds like development and production might have been slightly rushed to meet the dead line. I'll be very tempted I know. Wonder what the price will be? Anyone want an original? I have one to sell.
TECHNOLOGY
The iPhone 'Secret'
How Apple has kept a lid on the latest version.
Photos: Apple's Seeds of Innovation
Apple has never been a stranger to temptation. From iMacs to iPods, the 30-year-old computer company has repeatedly set off public frenzies with their cutting edge-and often cutesy-products. As they get consumers buzzing over the newest Mac gadget, a look back at ten landmark moments in Apple history:
Jun 4, 2008 | Updated: 12:57 p.m. ET Jun 4, 2008
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The launch of the next-generation iPhone promises to be Steve Jobs' greatest stunt yet. Apple, Jobs' secretive computer and gadget company, has been quietly positioning millions of units of a mysterious new product—almost certainly the new iPhone—in key markets since March. And yet, incredibly, not one credible image of Apple's new product has yet been published.
If the new phone is a flop, it's going to be a doozy. Apple is promising to sell 10 million of the gizmos this year; many investors are betting the Cupertino, Calif., company will sell many more than that. Yet Jobs has managed to keep the look, the feel and a complete list of the phone's features under wraps.
It's almost certain Jobs will unveil the latest version of the iPhone June 9, when he speaks at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. The gadget will go up for sale shortly thereafter. Ryan Peterson, co-founder at start-up ImportGenius.com, was the first to get the details of how Apple will make this happen. Peterson—an iPhone fan himself—sells shipping data culled from a clutch of government and private databases.
Meanwhile, analysts have a good idea who is making the parts inside the phone. Apple's new model is likely built around new, burlier communications chips from Infineon, says Will Strauss, a veteran communications chip watcher at Forward Concepts. Global positioning systems will be another new capability, Strauss says.
The look and feel of the phone, however, remains a mystery. Security at Apple's headquarters is tight. Rank-and-file staff say sensitive projects are draped with cloth before they're even brought into work. Yet Jobs would have had to have let others in on the secret once they handed off the specs for the new phone to Quanta (and quite probably also to Hon Hai Precision Industry) for assembly in sprawling compounds in China's Guangdong province.
One clue: Jobs began racking up serious mileage on his corporate jet during the company's final quarter of 2007, as he likely finalized deals with distribution partners in Europe and Asia, and perhaps scrutinized the first 3G iPhone handsets to come from his partners' factories. Morgan Stanley's Kathryn Huberty was the first to spot the enormous jump in Jobs' airplane expenses—to $550,000 from $203,000 during the previous quarter.
During the first quarter of 2008, however, the focus shifted back to Cupertino. Apple's engineers were scrambling to revise the phone's software, and the company delayed by a week a software development kit that would open up the iPhone to outside developers. It was all backed by a $100 million "iFund," launched by Kleiner Perkins to fuel developers crafting applications for the phone.
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