ICYMI: Our original iPhone coverage at Macworld 2007

After the Apple TV announcement, we move on towards the product that really shook the floor this MacWorld, the Apple iPhone. In this article, we take you through a virtual tour of the iPhone, its features, functionality, operation and our take on Apple's most anticipated hybrid device.

By Zachary Chan - 30 Jun 2017

Editor's note, June 30, 2017: This article was first published on January 10, 2007 (SG time), the day Apple co-founder Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone on stage at Macworld 2007. It went on sale in the U.S. on June 29, 2007 at 6PM, exactly 10 years ago today.

It's the iPhone after all!

It has been quite a long while since the rumors of Apple making a mobile phone first surfaced - ever since Apple acquired the www.iphone.org domain back in 1999. And straight after the Apple TV announcement, Apple CEO Steve Jobs put all eight years worth of speculation to rest by officially announcing the Apple iPhone. Unlike iTV, whose name was formally changed to Apple TV, the "iPhone" will really be called the iPhone. We know that you'll be too busy admiring its looks in the next few pages, so before you go gaga over the iPhone, here is a list of the most notable features of Apple's new obsession:

Key points of Apple iPhone:

3-in-1 gadget: a mobile phone, an Internet communications device and a widescreen iPod with touch controls
Runs on the OS X platform
Patented "Multi-touch" input method
GSM Quad-band (MHz: 850, 900, 1800, 1900)
Supports Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), EDGE and Bluetooth 2.0 - No 3G in sight yet
2.0-megapixel integrated camera
Visual Voicemail - Allows users to look at a listing of their voicemails and listen to the one they want, without listening to prior ones
Supports most industry standard IMAP and POP based email services (e.g. Microsoft Exchange, Apple .Mac Mail, AOL Mail, Google Gmail and most ISP mail services
Yahoo! Mail to offer free "push" IMAP email services to all iPhone users
Available in 4GB and 8GB capacities
3.5-inch screen (diagonal), 320 x 480-pixel resolution at 160ppi
Up to 5 hours of talk/video/browsing and up to 16 hours of audio playback
Dimensions at 115 x 61 x 11.6mm, weighs 135 grams
Retails for US$499 (4GB) and US$599 (8GB) with 2-year exclusive contract with Cingular (where applicable)
Available in the USA in June 2007, Europe by Q4 2007, and Asia only by 2008

An iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator

When Steve Jobs said that he was going to announce a new iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough Internet communicator, for a slight moment, we thought he really meant three different products. Our assumption wasn't totally wrong though, because the iPhone is exactly that: three products rolled into one unit.

We're fans of the early generation iPod, but this can't be the iPhone, Steve. Thankfully, it was just a joke.

Apple wants to revolutionize the user interface of the mobile and according to Jobs, one major problem with mobile phones these days (even new smartphones) is the static keypad and keyboard - Sorry, Blackberry and Palm lovers, but you're passe. Buttons and controls can't be changed, making it hard for manufacturers to add new features to existing products.

The only iPhone at the exhibit hall is this one that is being perched on a revolving platform, and enclosed by a glass cylinder. There are security people guarding the "exhibit" throughout the day.

On its rear, you can see the 2-megapixel camera on the top left corner. The headset port and the sleep/wake button reside at the top. The "iPod" connector is found at the bottom.

For a truly revolutionary UI, both hardware and software have to work hand in hand. The iPhone does away with traditional external input. There are no physical buttons and even a stylus is shunned for the touchscreen. So how does one input anything into the phones? Why - by using our fingers (and thumb) of course! To quote Jobs' keynote address, "The patented Multi-touch input works like magic, needs no stylus, is far more accurate, ignores unintended touches and allows multi-finder gestures". The iPhone in essence is "Five years ahead of any other phones".

The other bombshell dropped is that the iPhone runs on OS X. This certainly sounds like a logical choice for Apple. The networking, syncing, multi-tasking, and security advantages of OS X as well as its power efficiency are some of the reasons behind this choice. Of course, we mustn't forget other important components of OS X such as Core animation and Cocoa. At the end of the day, the iPhone is capable of providing desktop class application and networking capability. Because the iPhone is essentially an iPod as well, software updates work just like any iPod and available only through iTunes. One thing's for certain though, Apple is still tight lipped on what processor is powering the iPhone.

Be it placed horizontally or vertically, the iPhone does photos equally well. On the left side of the iPhone, you can vaguely make out the silent/ring button, and the 2-way volume rocker.

It's a phone

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, lets take a pictorial tour to see what the iPhone is capable of.

This is what you will see when someone calls.

Notice the numbers beside certain applications? They are basically visual alerts (e.g. one unread SMS).

Here's an example of how all your contacts can be listed. To navigate through these contacts, simply slide your finger up or down the screen. There are several shortcuts along the bottom of the screen: Favorites, Recents, Contacts, Keypad and Voicemail.

Here's how the detailed info screen of a contact looked like.

You can of course edit your contact's info, and assign a image to represent him/her/it.

This is what you will get when you are having a phone conversation. The proximity sensor near the top of the phone will switch off the screen when you bring the phone up to your ear, and turns back on when you bring it down.

When another person calls while you are on the line, you can of course either ignore it by active means, hold the other call and answer it, or end the call to answer it.

But wait! Isn't it better to talk to both parties at the same time. The iPhone is capable of doing conference calls.

Other than the Recents list, you can add your contacts to the Favorites list – just like songs!

Your call records. You can check the missed calls list as well via the "button" near the top.

If for some reason you need the keypad, pressing the Keypad icon at the bottom of the screen will bring this up.

During the demo, the iPhone was able to go straight to a particular voicemail without the need to listen from the start of the list first.

Like how the iPod tells us which new content we've not listened to, the dot tells you which messages are new.

A virtual QWERTY keyboard to reply your messages.

A nifty way to scale up or down your photo is to use the "pinching" method. Simply use your thumb and index finger and "pinch" the screen...

It's an iPod

This is the what the 3.5-inch screen will display when the iPhone is locked. To unlock, simply put your finger on the arrow at the bottom of the screen and slide to the right.

This is the iPhone's "Home" page. You can access it anytime by pressing the Home button below the screen. Click on the orange iPod button (bottom right corner) to transform your iPhone into a widescreen iPod.

An example of what you will see when a song is playing. Remember, this is a touch-screen iPod. Controls are all over the screen. As you can see, album art looks gorgeous on this screen.

There's an accelerometer built within the iPhone that detects the orientation of the iPod and rotates its display accordingly. It's an iPod too, so the inclusion of CoverFlow is not surprising.

A pretty self-explanatory screen here. Whatever you're listening to, the iPhone can sort it out for you here.

Turn your iPod into a landscape orientation, and you get a widescreen, video-capable iPod too!

It's an Internet Communicator

The iPhone uses a rich HTML email client that fetches your email in the background from most POP3 or IMAP mail services. Here’s how your Inbox looks like.

One layout is to have the mail take up the entire screen estate.

Notice that the phone number is underlined in blue in the mail? You can just click it and make a call directly.

You can also open up an email in a bottom pane so that the other emails are still accessible to you at the top half of the screen.

Since there's no stylus, you've got to use the virtual QWERTY keypad to reply your emails.

Safari is built into the iPhone as well. Like a desktop computer browser, it is able to load the whole webpage, and not those 'baby', watered down versions. Safari also includes built-in Google and Yahoo!

As expected, it worked great too when you rotate the iPhone into a landscape orientation.

If you find the words too small to read, just double-tap on any position on the screen to zoom into that particular area. Double-tap again, and it zooms out.

Since Mac OS X can run widgets, so should the iPhone. This is one way to add more functionality to the device.

Google is sure a good friend of Apple. This is Google Maps we're seeing here. During the keynote, Steve Jobs decided to seek out all the Starbucks outlets in the area.

He found several, picked one, dialed the number using the iPhone and ordered 4,000 cups of lattes. They didn't come in the end obviously.

Satellite images can be a lot of fun as we can see here.

Accessorize, accessorize, accessorise. The iPhone earphones come with a neat control box with a built-in mic and a pressure mechanism to answer/hang up calls by squeezing it.

Since the iPhone support Bluetooth 2.0, why not a new Bluetooth headset to go with it?

iPhone experiences

We managed to get a little hands-on time with one of the few working iPhone models during a closed product briefing. Its Multi-touch screen is decent enough to use. It isn't too much drastically different from any other touchscreen PDA or smartphone, but the absence of any keys and stylus makes the experience a little weird. Coming from Apple, you can never really shake the feeling that you're using an iPod instead of a phone. Initial impressions of performance is pretty good for the small time we've had with the iPhone. Applications start up and run quickly much like the better smartphones in the market. There are still some discernible pauses between switching of applications, but with six more months till the actual street launch, you can bet Apple is still ironing out the minor kinks.

The iPhone's text input prediction quite accurate for regular use and does a good job guessing what word you're trying to type. With the accelerometer, you can switch between portrait and landscape mode to better suit your viewing preferences. However, we noted that there might be certain applications, like the mail client, that are designed to be portrait oriented and does not switch to landscape mode even when tilted.

Visual Voicemail is a pretty cool feature since you don't have to sift through all your voicemails in a row. With the visual prompting, you can even choose to ignore messages of already ignored calls; that way you can really say you didn't 'get' the message - wonderful isn't it? However, we've been told that Visual Voicemail requires back-end support as well. This probably means that beside the iPhone, your mobile carrier will need to support this feature as well for it to work.

Our thoughts

After all the years of speculation and about a million different Photoshopped 'leaks', Apple has finally given their fans what they've wanted - 'the' Apple phone, but that isn't all. The iPhone is also the widescreen video iPod we've been waiting for and an all-in-one Internet communications device. It runs OS X, Safari, supports widgets, great application integration as well as solid multi-tasking capabilities.

However, Apple may have dropped the ball with a paper launch. At the speed that the mobile industry is moving, the iPhone features may well be outdated six months down the line. And that's only the US launch, the world will only see the iPhone at the end of 2007 for Europe and no love for Asia till 2008. Most surprisingly is the lack of 3G in the iPhone. There are already rumors going around of both GSM and 3G versions of the iPhone in the making, but its an Apple product, rumors are a given. Till we actually see an announcement, the iPhone looses some ground as the next big thing for phones. Rather, its main selling point is that it is a superb hybrid of a WiFi video iPod with supplementary mobile phone functionality. Of course, its 8GB storage limit comes off a little short for the needs of a full fledged video iPod.

Another thing to keep an eye on is developer support for the iPhone. Will we be at the mercy of Apple to trickle down official applications and widgets or will Apple open strong third party developer support? Again, between now and the time the iPhone is launched, many things can still change. For now, well, you have the Cisco 'iPhone' trademark lawsuit to keep things fresh. If anything is a constant though, you can be sure the Apple iPhone will be a huge success.