THE INTERNET COLUMN

www.apple.com/iphone
www.allofmp3.com
www.shadowglobe.com
www.joard.com
www.doxory.com
www.showmethewaytogo.org.uk


Apple boss Steve Jobs has never been known for lack of confidence.

When he announced the new iPhone earlier this year, he said it was going to re-invent the phone industry.

Problem was, not everyone believed him. Even the Apple Faithful struggled to bring themselves to believe that the iPhone Jobs demonstrated on stage in January would be as amazing as he promised.

The battery life will be terrible, they predicted. No-one will want such an expensive phone, they warned. It will just be an overpriced iPod, the cynics sneered.

This week, they were all proved wrong. Not only has the iPod turned out to be as good as Steve Jobs said it would be, it has for the most part exceeded everyone's expectations. It's better than good.
After going on sale in the USA on June 29th, over half a million iPhones were sold in a weekend. Initial reviews were so overwhelmingly positive that continued good sales are almost guaranteed.

The thing about iPhone is this: it doesn't do everything that a lot of other smart phones do. In comparison to them, it is under-featured.

But the things it does do, it does extremely well. And with a touch-screen user interface that is, frankly, light years ahead of anything else on the market.

It's this interface that has got people most excited. With your fingertips (not with a stylus), you flick, tap, swipe and tease your way through menus, photos, music and videos. Turn the iPhone on its side and the display smoothly twists itself into landscape view.

Browse your music collection by flicking through a digital display of all the album covers. The whole experience is a delight; one commentator compared it to everyone's childhood dream of flying cars - the iPhone feels like a futuristic computer.

Not everything's perfect, though. While the events in iPhone's calendar sync with the events in the desktop iCal application, the todo items don't sync at all. You can jot notes on the iPhone, but they don't sync either.

There's a pretty good email application on the iPhone designed to work with standard email accounts as well as web-based services from Yahoo and Google, but it doesn't sync changes back to your desktop computer.

The consensus remains that the iPhone is a landmark consumer gadget; the sheer pleasure of using the multi-touch interface, and the quality of the product, outweighs the odd missing features.

Rumour says that iPhones will reach the UK before Christmas, in a deal with mobile operator O2; expect them to cost around £300, at least.

Deals for other European countries are still be hammered out.

Competition among phone companies is fierce, despite Apple's notoriously tight control over the handset, and specific demands for certain network technologies. The iPhone is so hip, the mobile service companies are desperate to do a deal.

+ None of MP3 +
AllofMP3.com, the Russian online music retailer, has been shut down by the Russian government under pressure from the international music industry. The site, in operation for several years, sold high-quality MP3 music files from big-name artists at ridiculously low prices - just a few pence per track. AllofMP3.com said it operated legally, but the music industry said otherwise.

+ Squashed mouse +
Sony has taken a long, hard look at the humble computer mouse and decided to re-think it completely. The result is the unhelpfully-named SMU W10, a device that looks more like a squat phone handset. But it's a mouse, a flattened one that looks much more unobtrusive than most others. It's not cheap, mind you: you don't get much change from 70 quid, so don't expect it to take over from the bog-standard mouse-shaped mouse for a while yet.

+ Browsing around +
:: Shadow Globe is a hip internet radio station broadcasting an impressive mix of new and unsigned bands www.shadowglobe.com

:: Got a web site? Want to put a jobs board on it? Try Joard www.joard.com

:: Let other people help you make your mind up about things www.doxory.com

:: Can you give me some directions please?

www.showmethewaytogo.org.uk