Apple Computers No More; iPhone On The Way

Wow. It is a very busy day today. Steve Jobs has just announced a few bombshells at the Macworld conference:

1. His company will no more be called Apple Computers Inc. From now on, it is Apple Inc. That's right. The "computer" part of the equation is gone.

2. The unveiling of the iPhone. Oh boy. Apple is moving into the wireless / cell phone game. I'm smelling some convergence here, yep. Would you believe it's a wide-screen iPod, a mobile phone and an Internet communications device?

From the SFGate blog link you can click on in the first paragraph up above:

It (the iPhone) has the Safari web browser on it, Google maps, html email, widgets like weather and stocks (and more to come).
It'll also have "full desktop class e-mail running on a mobile device" thanks to a partnership with Yahoo mail, which Jobs called the most popular email service on the planet.

He then demonstrated Safari, showing the whole New York Times Web site. He even turned the phone on its side to see the page in landscape mode.

The iPhone will sync with iTunes, as well as with all data, including things like calendar and addresses. It has a 5 megapixel camera. It has a speaker, an iPod connector, and some sensors.

It has three advanced sensors built in. One is a proximity sensor that turns off the touch screen when you're talking.

The iPhone will have some Bluetooth accessories, as well as standard iPod headphones that are outfitted with a voice.

He (Jobs) boasts that it will have 5 hours of battery life and 16 hours of audio playback.

"How will we price it?" Jobs coyly points to $499 iPods and smart phones and says how the iPhone has so much more.

The iPhone will cost $499 for 4 gigabyte model, and $599 for an 8gb model. It'll be shipping in June, once Apple gets FCC approval.

The phone will be available exclusively with Cingular.

(But the real $64,000 question is: will it cook and do the dishes for you, too? Man. That's pretty all-in-one.)

Oh, and if you think Jobs was putting his eggs into one basket there's 3. The unveiling of a wide-screen iPod and something called AppleTV. Says CBC.ca:

Previously known as iTV, Apple TV will allow users to wirelessly transmit downloaded movies from a PC or Mac to their television.

Needless to say, there are reports that Apple shares are up anywhere from two to five per cent on the NYSE today. No wonder.

Talk about a Steve Jobs cluster bomb of news.

Whew!

And the day's not even done ... .

UPDATE: One of meme.ca's loyal readers pointed out this interesting correlation:

Shares of Apple (AAPL) have risen sharply Tuesday, up more than six percent in midday trading. The company unveiled its new iPhone, which is expected to see strong demand. This news did hurt Research in Motion (RIMM), which makes the popular BlackBerry, with the stock down more than six percent.

Interesting. Veddy interesting.

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Apple Computers No More; iPhone On The Way

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