Apple last night debuted its much-anticipated take on the smart phone, a sleek device with a large screen that combines a phone, an iPod and instant messaging, sending its shares to a record high.
Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, pulled an iPhone from his jeans pocket at the annual Macworld conference and drew a standing ovation at the end of his speech.
Apple's new iPhone. It has a touch-screen 8 gigabytes of memory and will cost in the region of $599.
Investors also cheered, pushing Apple shares 8 per cent higher, while those of rival high-end phone makers Palm and Research In Motion fell.
Lacking the diminutive keypads found on other smart phones, Apple's iPhone has a single button and a 3.5-inch (9-cm) touch screen to navigate between playing songs and videos, displaying pictures, typing instant messages or making phone calls.
In a nod to Apple's widening influence in consumer electronics, Mr Jobs said it would drop "Computer" from its name.
Most of what Apple Inc. sells now is mobile technology, whether it be iPods or notebooks, which now outsell desktop Macs.
The iPhone is thinner than some of the cell phone industry's sleekest devices, such as Motorola's RAZR.
It will cost $499 to $599 when it debuts in the United States in June. Sales are expected to start in Europe in the fourth quarter and in Asia in 2008.
Cingular Wireless a unit of AT&T, has a multiyear, exclusive agreement to provide US service for the iPhone.
Apple ceo Steve Jobs
Mr Jobs said that in 2008 Apple could sell 10 million iPhones, representing roughly 1 per cent of the current annual mobile phone market of 1 billion units a year. Last year, the consumer electronics market globally was worth $145 billion.
"This is a huge market right here," Mr Jobs said in an interview, calling the iPhone "a natural extension of what we've been doing."
The iPhone is 11.6-millimeters (0.5-inches) thick, has five hours of continuous talk time and 15 hours for playing music, and includes a camera.
It runs Apple's OS X operating system, has the Safari browser for Web access and e-mail functions that can handle graphics and work with external services.
The iPhone can connect to the Internet wirelessly via Wi-Fi and has Bluetooth, a short-range wireless technology that supports wireless headsets or links to devices like printers.