The rumors were true. Here’s the news. Here’s the WSJ (sub req’d) article.
From ComputerWorld:
The entire front of the quadband GSM phone serves as the screen, Jobs told attendees at the MacWorld Expo here this morning. He also noted that the operating system behind the phone’s various features is Mac OS X and said that it will sync up with a user’s iTunes, plus mail, notes and bookmarks. It will also display visual voicemails.
The phone, with a screen that measures 3.5 inches diagonally, plays video and includes a 2-megapixel camera. The screen offers a higher-than-normal resolution of 160 pixels per inch, Jobs said. He also said that the iPhone has a proximity sensor so that when it’s held up to a user’s ear during a call, the user interface is turned off.
Jobs pointed out that the phone will offer WiFi and Bluetooth wireless connectivity, comes with the company’s Safari Web browser and displays Google maps.
The fact that this phone is so cool/beautiful and so multi-function may pay big dividends for Cingular, already the largest US carrier, and, perhaps unbelievably, Google, which is built in. This is the closest thing to the right form factor for mobile data/mobile local search I’ve seen. (Google and Yahoo! Search are both on the mobile Safari browser).
