From the moment it was unveiled in January by Apple’s CEO,
iPhone has ignited a real tech revolution and it divided the tech and mobile
community into two different sides. On one side we have the ones who believe
that iPhone is the future of mobile devices and on the other those who thinks
the Apple’s gadget is nothing but a storm in glass of water.
Until now Microsoft, a well-known Apple’s rival, has little
to say about Apple’s latest trick, but yesterday, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s
CEO has finally revealed his opinions on Apple’s venture intro mobile market.
Speaking with USA Today's David Lieberman, Ballmer responded
to a question regarding iPhone.
“People get passionate when Apple comes out with something
new — the iPhone; of course, the iPod. Is that something that you'd want them
to feel about Microsoft?” asked Lieberman
“It's sort of a funny question. Would I trade 96% of the
market for 4% of the market? (Laughter.) I want to have products that appeal to
everybody. Now we'll get a chance to go through this again in phones and music
players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant
market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of
money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold,
I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to
have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.” responded Ballmer.
Still, Ballmer recognized that in case of music, Apple “were
the first to really recognize that you couldn't just think about the device and
all the pieces separately.”
Apple will ship the iPhone in the U.S.
on June 11, the first day of Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. The 4
gigabyte version will cost 499 dollars. The 8 gigabyte version will cost 599
dollars. The device features a touch-screen input technology called Multi-
Touch, controlled by sliding a finger across its touch-sensitive, 9- centimetre
(3.5-inch), 160-pixel-per-inch display. The display automatically switches
between landscape or portrait mode thanks to a built-in sensor.
The iPhone, which runs the Macintosh operating system,
seamlessly syncs data with a desktop computer, including music and videos from
iTunes, contacts, calendars, photos, notes, contacts, bookmarks and email
accounts.
The 11.6-millimetre thick device also sports a 2-megapixel
camera, headset jack, 3.5-millimetre audio jack, SIM tray, a sleep-wake switch,
speaker, microphone and an iPod dock connector. The quad-band GSM plus EDGE
phone also has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 capabilities. Future versions will carry
3G capabilities.
The iPhone includes all the features of a regular video
iPod. It also has Apple's Safari web browser, allowing it to view standard web
pages, rather than WAP versions of pages. Integrated Google Maps functionality
lets users look up a business and drop its phone number directly into the
dialer.
The phone offers easy conference calling and a Visual
Voicemail feature, which allows users to skip directly to voice mails they want
to hear.
