Apple, Inc. (finally) announces new iPhone

For us in Shanghai, the keynote speach of Steve Jobs at Macworld came at around 1 am. It marked an important event in the gadget world — the unveiling of the much-anticipated iPhone. You can find A LOT OF details here, here, here, and here.

First interesting thing: the name "iPhone" — just in mid-December Linksys launched its new series of iPhones. Now, Apple, Inc. took over the brand name and both parties seem to be happy — what an exception in this industry.

The new Apple iPhone looks nice and has many functions. First of all, it's an iPod, which we all know very well. Plus it has internet access, runs on OS X, and (naturally) is a mobile phone. Still, the critics are speaking up as well:

Other unfortunate realities about the device:

* No 3G. We know you know, but still, it hurts man.
* No over the air iTunes Store downloads or WiFi syncing to your host machine.
* No expandable memory.
* No removable battery.
* No Exchange or Office support.

And to be honest, so far we don't see a reason to move away from our 3-in-1 phone.

The other announcements by Steve Jobs: Apple TV, Airport Extreme, the Paramount deal — all the details here.

The iPhone will be available in the US in June 2007 — "and Asia won't see the phone until 2008!" In the meantime, let's see what our creative Chinese manufacturers will come up with ...