Apple did the expectedly-unexpected and announced the iPhone.

It’s a widescreen iPod mixed with a mobile phone mixed with a teeny-tiny Mac for Safari and Mail. Put simply, this is the most awesome piece of consumer electronics I have ever seen, so far. And I’ve seen a lot.

$599 for 8GB version. $499 for 4GB version.

So, some questions:

  1. Released in June in the US, but Q4 2007 IN EUROPE?! WHYYY? Oh the humanity.

  2. 5 hour talk/video battery life, 16 hour audio battery life… but what’s the standby life?

  3. Who will be the carrier partner in Ireland? I’m guessing this will be O2, since they’ve got a lot of ties with Apple, but…

  4. Why partner with Google for the maps and search, but partner with Yahoo for the mail?

  5. How does it know where you are for the location-aware maps stuff? Cellular towers? Or is this a feature of 3G?

Update: Answered in the actual keynote - there doesn’t seem to be any location-awareness in the phone. Steve had manually entered “Moscone West” as as ‘saved location’ in the maps application

  1. Are there any other differences between the two versions? Because I can’t imagine anyone not springing the extra $100 for the larger capacity one.

  2. What kind of graphics chip is powering this beast?

Oh yeah, and there was something about a media streamer that’s coming out in February, but who the shit really cares about that? Especially since it doesn’t even output in 1080p.