The Apple iPhone is a multimedia/Internet-enabled phone announced by Apple CEO Steve Jobs during the keynote address at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 9, 2007. The iPhone has a scheduled US release date of June 2007, (later outside the US)and will be available from the Apple Store and from Cingular Wireless. iPhone has a planned launch price of US$499 for the 4 GB model and $599 for the 8 GB model, based on a two-year service contract.The iPhone's functions include those of a camera phone, a multimedia player, mobile telephone, and Internet services like e-mail, text messaging, web browsing and wireless connectivity. iPhone input is accomplished via touchscreen with virtual keyboard and buttons. The iPhone is a quad-band GSM phone, though Jobs mentioned in his keynote that Apple has a "plan to make 3G phones" in the future. Apple has filed over 200 patents related to the technology behind the iPhone.
Touch screen:The 3.5-inch (8.9cm) display (320×480 px at 160 ppi) touchscreen is specifically created for use with a finger, or multiple fingers for multi-touch sensing. No stylus is needed, nor can one be used, as the touch screen requires bare skin to operate.

For text input, the device implements a virtual keyboard on the touchscreen. It has automatic spell checking, predictive word capabilities, and a dynamic dictionary that learns new words as you type. Notably, the predictive word capabilities have been deftly integrated with the dynamic virtual keyboard so that users will not have to be extremely accurate when typing -- i.e. touching the edges of the desired letter or nearby letters on the keyboard will be predictively corrected when possible. Additionally, an optional landscape mode for text entry with the virtual keyboard has been mentioned by Apple executives as a possibility for iPhone, but Apple has not yet come to a final decision as to its inclusion in the shipping version of iPhone. A possible advantage of landscape text entry would be the availability of larger keys to ease text entry, especially for individuals with larger fingers.

User Interface:

The iPhone varies from common desktop interfaces by using a direct manipulation model of scrolling. Where a typical desktop GUI achieves scrolling by using a scroll-arrow to push a view-window down and thus the content itself up (or the reverse, clicking up to move content down), the iPhone interface enables the user to move the content itself up or down by a simple and natural touch-drag-lift motion, much as one would slide a playing card across a table. Additionally, the interface will compute the speed desired for scrolling based on the speed and acceleration with which the drag motion is performed.
Scrolling through a long list works as if the list is pasted on the surface of a wheel: you can "give the wheel a spin" by sliding your finger over the display; after you lifted your finger from the display the "wheel continues spinning" for a short moment before coasting down. In this way, the iPhone seems to simulate the physics of a real object, which, it is thought, should give a very natural feel to the whole process.
The UI also features other visual effects, such as horizontally sliding sub-selections and co-selections from right and left, vertically sliding system menus from the bottom (e.g. favorites, keyboard), and menus and widgets that turn around to allow settings to be configured on their back sides.
The photo album and web page magnifications are examples of multi-touch sensing. It is possible to zoom in and out of objects such as web pages and photos by respectively "unpinching" and "pinching" them, that is, placing two fingers (usually thumb and forefinger) on the screen and moving them farther apart or closer together as if stretching or squeezing the image. This scaling is done uniformly and proportionally based on the image in question so there is no distortion of the image itself, as would be the case if the image were actually stretched or squeezed.

phone:

The iPhone allows conferencing, call holding, call merging, caller ID, and integration with other cellular network features and iPhone functions. For example, a playing song fades out when the user receives a call. Once the call is ended the music fades back seamlessly.
The iPhone will include a Visual Voicemail feature in conjunction with Cingular which allows users to view a list of current voicemail messages onscreen, without having to call into their voicemail. Voicemail messages can be listened to in a nonlinear fashion. Most other voicemail systems currently require users to listen to voicemail in the same order in which the messages were recorded -- that is to say, chronologically. The visual voicemail system enables users the freedom to see all voicemail messages at once and choose a given message to listen to, regardless of the order in which the messages were recorded. Cingular completely reworked their voicemail infrastructure to accommodate this new feature designed by Apple.
E-mail messages are presented chronologically in a mailbox format similar to Mail, which places all text from recipients together with replies. Text messages are displayed in speech bubbles (similar to iChat) under each recipient's name

Camera:

The iPhone features a 2 megapixel camera with video and software that allows the user to upload, view, and e-mail photos. The user zooms in and out of photos by "unpinching" and "pinching" them through the Multi-touch interface. The software will interact with iPhoto on the Mac.

iPod:

The layout of the music library differs from previous iPods, with the sections divided more clearly alphabetically, and with a larger font. The Cover Flow, like that on iTunes, shows the different album covers in a scroll-through photo library. Scrolling is achieved by swiping a finger across the screen.
Like the fifth-generation iPods introduced in 2005, the iPhone can play video allowing users to watch TV shows and films. Unlike other image-related content, video on the iPhone plays only in the landscape orientation, when the phone is turned sideways. A two-fingered tap is used to switch between wide-screen and full-screen aspect ratios.

Internet:

The iPhone has built-in WiFi, with which it will be able to access the Internet (through a wireless network) via the Safari browser.The iPhone will also be able to connect to the Internet through Cingular's EDGE network but will not be able to utilize Cingular's 3G/HSDPA network at launch.The web browser displays full web pages as opposed to simplified pages as on most other phones. Web pages may be viewed in portrait or landscape mode and support automatic zooming by "pinching" or double-tapping images or text. The iPhone also has Bluetooth built in and works with wireless earpieces that use Bluetooth 2.0 technology and for file transfer.
An agreement between Apple and Google provides for access to a specially modified version of Google Maps — in map, local list, or satellite form, optimized for the iPhone. During the launch of the product, Jobs demonstrated this feature by searching for nearby coffee shops and then placing a call to one with a single tap.

Pricing and availability:

Jobs announced that the iPhone will first be available in June 2007 in the U.S., during the fourth quarter 2007 in Europe, and in 2008 for Asia. The iPhone may be purchased (US $499 for a 4 GB model and for $599 an 8 GB model) only with a two-year service plan with Cingular Wireless, which will will remain the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the United States until 2009.
Apple also announced that its goal is to capture 1% of the global mobile phone market, which would be approximately 10 million units being sold in the first full calendar year of iPhone availability. For comparison, Jobs announced that the Apple iPod commands 62% of the U.S. market share for MP3 players.