News of the World - 4th November 2007

The iPhone is a touch of class-it's already the coolest gadget on the planet and it's not even on sale yet. The revolutionary touchscreen device launches on Friday and it will introduce the biggest change in mobile communication since the heavy brick became a lightweight handset.

Apple has reinvented its own clickwheel to bring us the most sophisticated fingertip browsing experience yet. The awesome feature allows you to enlarge web pages and pictures by moving your thumb and forefinger apart on the screen surface. To reverse the zoom, just squeeze the surface and the image will reduce in size. Tip the iPhone on its side and you get a widescreen landscape view.

Visual voice mail is also brilliant, working like a text-message folder. You can see the caller's name or phone number and listen to the message instantly-you don't have to call your voicemail. You can even scroll back the message like an audio or video clip to replay specific segments.

Sadly Apple have left a few things out. You can't send a picture message to another phone because it doesn't support MMS. And you can't share songs via Bluetooth. You get songs and videos by downloading from iTunes or "sideloading" from your computer. Streaming is not included because there's no 3G. And if you want to change the sim card or battery, you have to send the iPhone back to Apple.

But everyone who sees an iPhone wants one. You'll have to fork out £269 for the handset and switch to an O2 network with a minimum £35 a month contract, which includes 200 minutes, 200 texts and unlimited data and wi-fi browsing.

Other phone makers will race to catch up with Apple's new touch-screen interface, but there are some devices that offer similar and sometimes better functions.

Stuff Magazine - 10 July 2007

The most hyped and anticipated phone of all time has finally arrived. Can anything else compare to this multi-touch-sensitive widescreen iPod / phone?

For years the iPhone has been whispered about as technology's holy grail, destined from its conception to be the greatest gadget ever made. Take the world-beating iPod, add a mobile phone and a few extra years of user-interface evolution, then package it up with the genius of the world's most imitated industrial design team. Surely success is guaranteed?

Maybe. But history is strewn with the carcasses of technologies that didn't live up to the hype. Just ask Motorola, whose previous attempt to produce an iTunes mobile met with nothing but derision.

Fortunately, the iPhone is no ROKR. In fact, Apple has succeeded in crafting a unique phone that is superior everything else on the market. In one great leap Apple has rewritten the rules for mobile web browsing, invented a completely new touch-sensitive interface, and evolved the iPod.

In the hand, the iPhone oozes sexiness; its wide, high-resolution screen is encircled by a halo of chrome and wrapped on its back side by cool brushed metal. When you hold it, it's thinner and lighter than pictures would suggest: it feels like you are holding the future.

Worried about a phone interface that relies on poking a screen with your fingers? Don't be. Navigating through the iPhone's applications is incredibly intuitive, and whatever you do you'll use the same system of taps, flicks, and pinches - all of which produce almost instantaneous, fluidly animated responses.

As a music player, the iPhone's Cover Flow album browsing (which, thanks to the built-in accelerometer, automatically appears when the device is held horizontally) puts the iPod's fabled Click Wheel to shame.

Connecting to a PC is gloriously simple, too - iTunes content is synched an iPod and, thanks to the iPhone's dock connector, the device can be used with any of the innumerable iPod listening stations. The iPhone even detects when it is docked for music playback and offers to turn on 'Airplane Mode' to minimise screeching feedback caused by its wireless transmissions.

Web applications, like Google Maps and YouTube, feel like integrated components of the iPhone when Wi-Fi is available. Browsing the globe from a satellite's point of view is glorious, using simple finger flicks for scrolling and pinches for zooming in and out is glorious. Though the phone lacks GPS, it can produce turn by turn directions when given start and end addresses. The YouTube application is likewise excellent, and the new selection of H.264 encoded clips look stunning on the iPhone's display (though the lack of Flash on means you can't access YouTube via the Safari browser).

The iPhone's few failings are relatively minor. But, for new US users, AT&T's EDGE data network is terribly slow and brings the iPhone's web apps to their knees when a Wi-Fi connection is unavailable. Europeans will be distraught to learn that most GPRS networks aren't EDGE-compatible. Let's keep our fingers crossed that a 3G version is coming soon.

Learning to text via the iPhone's on-screen keyboard takes a bit of getting used to, and until you learn to trust the predictive and corrective software it will be significantly slower than a BlackBerry.

And there's no getting away from the fact that the iPhone is expensive (even in America) - $499 for the 4GB model and $599 for 8GB, in addition to a two-year service commitment with AT&T.

And if you're concerned about a smudged screen, then you'd better start worrying now. But heck, that's what sleeves are for.

In fact, you might need to keep it to hand - a few hours with the iPhone is guaranteed to be a very steamy experience. So, who's up for moving to the States?

Mad4 Mobile Phones- October 2007

The Apple iPhone is a cross between an iPod and an advanced mobile phone and will be launched in the UK on November 9th 2007. While it is clearly the most anticipated mobile phone ever released it is also full of innovative features and looks sleeker and more stylish than most other phones as well.

The casing is small at 115 x 61 x 11.6 mm and weighs just 135 grams and is available in sleek black or a pearly white colour. The main feature is the huge touch sensitive widescreen which acts as the main interface with the phone. At 3.5 inches and 320x480 pixels the iPhone has one of the biggest screens ever on a phone. Navigation is easy thanks to the touch screen and intuitive Mac OS X icon driven menu system

Like the iPod Apple have made the iPhone available in 4GB and 8GB versions. Battery life is good so you can play music uninterrupted for 16 hours. Talk time is apparently 5 hours.

As you might expect the iPhone has a photo address book with easy controls. Simply click on the persons picture to call them or send a text. Other nice functions are a favourite calls list automatically generated from the people you call most and a conference call feature.

Emails and text messages are very easy thanks to the touch sensitive screen which converts into a full QWERTY keyboard with predictive text and auto correct for any typing errors. Supported email applications include POP3, Microsoft Exchange, AOL, Gmail and Apple Mac Mail. Unlike a lot of phones the iPhone supports photos and attachments in emails making it more like a PC than a cell phone.

Our favourite feature is the visual voicemail application which shows new answer phone messages on the screen with options to listen, save or delete the message or call the person who left it. The date, time and duration of the message are also displayed on the screen.

The music player works in much the same way as an iPod and allows the user to scroll through tracks and upload or download to a PC. Album covers can also be stored and used on the iPhone which has an innovative search facility so you can scroll through images like you would flick through a filing cabinet.

Although the camera isn't as good as some high end phones like the Sony Ericsson K800i it is capable of some very high quality images and offers editing software so you can touch up photos and videos without having to load the pictures onto a PC.

Internet access is amazing thanks to the large screen and makes the iPhone the best internet phone we have ever tested. Google is built in and you can use Google Maps to get directions based on your location. The internet is fast due to the EDGE connection and Apple have also given the iPhone Wi Fi so you can sync with other devices with ease.

Finally the coolest feature is the automatically changing screen that detects whether the phone is upright or in landscape mode and rotates accordingly.

The iPhone is going to be the top selling phone of 2007/2008 without a doubt.