Yesterday Apple released the Apple TV product and the iPhone. We luckily had an affiliate at Mac World to give us a first hand report. Exclusively from Josh Porter:
“They did it! Apple made an iPhone! Just as cool, Dad, Ed, and I were among the first public eyes to see it unveiled by the hand of Steve Jobs himself in the Keynote address at MacWorld here in San Fransisco in the Mascone Center! The foyers were filled with giant posters of a silhouetted Apple icon and the logo “The first 30 years were just the beginning. Welcome to 2007.” It was just exciting to walk into the room where a small stage was surrounded by three giant screens with the Apple logo and lots of energy with all 4,000 Mac users in the room, waiting for Steve to come out. An added anticipation was there for this much rumored device over the last year and especially the last few months. When Steve came out, (this was the first time I saw Steve Jobs in person) the crowed cheered and he was very happy to say, “Were going to make history together today.” The crowed cheered even louder. Some guy behgind me said, “Don’t tease me, Steve!” He talked about the iPod growth, then he introduced the Apple TV, and showed us the pretty cool features of it.
Then he mentioned how in 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh (which presentation I viewed on You Tube just a few days earlier, which was funny to see people’s amazement to what we consider commonplace now..the first consumer GUI[Graphical User Interface] computer.) Then Steve spoke about in 2001 when they introduced the iPod. So he was lining up the history of how Apple has introduced these revolutionary products. It was cool to reiew how they had innovated these products we use now. Then on his Keynote he pulled slide up with the Apple sillotte. Now people were really in suspense. But then he said they were going to unvile three new products today. A new iPod, a Phone (people really cheered…Our hopes and dreams were finally confirmed!), and mobile internet device. Again the crowed cheered. Then he said all three of these new products were in one device!
He proceeded to show the hardware first and explained the features. It looked very sleek. Steve tuned it on to show the amazing features this phone had. Steve said that they were thinking of a sophisticated way of entering data, better than a keyboard or stylus (refereeing to other products). Your Finger! He spoke about the new technologies they invented Multi-Touch screen, visual voicemail, and another that I can’t remember at the moment. That was their solution to clumsy data entry and control, referring to the limitation of keyboards and their functions. He taught us how the pinch feature could zoom in on iPhotos (one of the coolest features!). Steve said that Mac OS X would be running this product, not some reduced OS.
It was awesome to hear and feel your own reaction to these innovative technologies along with the rest of the crowd’s amazement as he unveiled this revolutionary product. It was as if we were among the same audience when he unveiled the first Macintosh!
One Internet report guesses this would be the next generation of cell phones and they were right! Apple has a nack for going beyond the common. Think different is certainly their philosophy. They take one idea and make it incredible!
In order, he showed us the function of the iPod and the cool rubber band effect of the play list motion, the album cover animation, etc. The phone features were next! Steve presented visual voicemail (a textual way of selecting voice messages), using the contacts to dial, a proximity sensor to unhook the phone when it is near your ear, etc.
He then showed us the internet features on Safari, a fully functional internet browser on a cell! You can see the web page as it was intended. As well as email, the first HTML email client on a cell! Steve showed us Google maps and the satellite image of the Washington National Monument! People really liked that!
Steve made the first public phone call to Jony Ive, the lead developer of the iPod and this new iPhone. It was sweet! Then the Marketing VP called in and said, “I wanted to be the first one you called on the iPhone!”
Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google and Apple Board member, came out to speak about their excitement in this product. Yahoo CEO and Cingular CEO came on stage as well. Cingular’s guy said they made a contract with Apple before they even saw the phone and that they were that confident in Apple’s plans for this product.
Steve ended by having the developer team stand up and the crowed applauded for them. He then thanked their families for the time they sacrificed over the last few months for this. Steve introduced John Mayer, who played a couple songs for us in celebration. This certainly was a triumph for Apple (once again) and you could see Steve was pleased.
After the Keynote, I spoke with my roommate Ryan, who is another Apple addict and we were very happy to know it finally came out! I called Neil Aboshamma and Pace McCulloch, two other Apple fans about this after the Keynote. Alex, Jared, Daina, Jenny, Stephanie, Mims, and Trevor are among the other friends who called me or I called to share my excitement for this incredible new product! Ed was happy to see my excitement for this product as I spoke about it over the phone to my friends several times over, he mentioned tht several times. Mom mentioned she saw it one the news already, we turned on and it sure was. Apple Stock went up $2 even as he was showing a stock widget on the phone itself, I believe it went up to over $90 a share.
Dad, Ed, Lauren, K.C. and I went to the MacWorld Expo in the Moscone Center and saw two iPhones on display, rotating behind a glass case, where many were observing and taking photos. We also played with some Apple TV’s and saw presentation on Leapord, the new OS. We took some pictures, one was supposedly taken by one of the iPhone developers, some dude named Adrian. K got his business card.
This was really neat to be part of the first public eyes to have the viewed the iPhone. History certainly was made today as Steve said and I was extremely excited to have been there when he unveiled it and to feel the energy of the crowd, mac lovers, news reports, family and friends throughout the day. This was a revolution! Truly and innovation. Something like this certainly does not come out every day! Apple is gonna blow it out of the water with this! We are going to visit Apple Corporate headquarters today in Cupertiono.
In short, the iPhone is killer!”