Apple CEO Unveils iPhone, Apple TV

(CBS/AP)  Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday made the company's long-awaited jump into the mobile phone business and renamed the company to just "Apple Inc.," reflecting its increasing focus on consumer electronics.

The iPhone, which starts at $499, is controlled by touch, plays music, surfs the Internet and runs the Macintosh computer operating system. Jobs said it will "reinvent" the telecommunications sector and "leapfrog" past the current generation of hard-to-use smart phones.

"Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything," he said during his keynote address at the annual Macworld Conference and Expo. "It's very fortunate if you can work on just one of these in your career. ... Apple's been very fortunate in that it's introduced a few of these."

He said the name change is meant to reflect the fact that Apple has matured from a computer manufacturer to a full-fledged consumer electronics company.

"I didn't sleep a wink last night," he said. "I was so excited."

Apple TV, as the company's latest product is known, is designed to bridge computers and television sets so users can more easily watch their downloaded movies on a big screen. It will allow users to buy movies and TV shows from iTunes, download them from the Internet and view them on big screen high-definition TV, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone.

Apple TV will come with a 40-gigabyte hard drive that stores up to 50 hours of video. It features an Intel Corp. microprocessor and can handle videos, photos and music streamed from up to five computers within the wireless range.

A prototype of the gadget was introduced by Jobs in September when Apple announced it would sell TV shows and movies through its iTunes online store.

The product could be as revolutionary to digital movies as Apple's iPod music player was to digital music. Both devices liberate media from the computer, allowing people to enjoy digital files without being chained to a desktop or laptop.

"It's really, really easy to use," Jobs told the crowd at San Francisco's Moscone Center before demonstrating the system with a video clip of "The Good Shepherd." "It's got the processing horsepower to do the kinds of things we like to do."

Apple has partnered with Disney for several months, offering about 100 movies on iTunes. Jobs announced Apple will also sell digital movies from Paramount, which will add another 150 titles available for downloading on the site.

In introducing Apple's highly anticipated button-less iPod cellphone, Jobs says it will "leapfrog" past the current generation of hard-to-use smart phones.

The iPhone, capable of downloading and playing music — really a computer running Apple's OS X operating system, running full desktop applications like the Safari web browser — is thinner than almost any phone on the market today: 11.6mm. It will be a widescreen iPod and Wi-fi Internet access device with a 3.5-inch diagonal screen, as well as cell phone with a 2 megapixel camera built into the back, as well as a slot for headphones and a SIM card.

"It's just like an iPod," Jobs said, "charge and synch."

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[jellisonlau]

I say again, Apple's practices are downright dishonest.

If your battery life is going to last 2 hours, don't advertise it as 8 hours!

I call that scamming!

The whole company's based on hype and more hype!

I used to buy mac products like a fanatic, but no more! Once burned never again!

I only buy Dell these days and when it comes to cellphones-mp3 players, Motorola and Sony's already come up with far better products!

And the best thing is, you do not need to deal with the clunky ITunes program.

With these phones, you just download and listen! What could be easier than that!

[chilean11-2009]

what a bunch of whining microsofties. Start buy apple's stock.

[Syndicate]

I think Microsoft's announcment last month that they were introducing a ROBOT operating system is a much more important announcement. It recieved virtually no press. I accidently discovered it while searching LEGO Mindstorms( a robotic invention kit for kids).

[passerby2]

when it starts doing my laundry then I'll be excited...

[bobgee_1999]

As soon anyone can explain to me why anyone but a self-important twit would want a phone with them 24 hours a day, I'll get excited.

When they can make it pump out 200watts per channel through a set of pocket sized miniature Bose speakers then I'll get excited

[shanev137]

When the litte GPS phone can interface with the internet at 700k, hold 10 movies, 50,000 songs, sport a 12 mpxl video camera and hook up to printer/dvd burner/tv for less than $500...

I'll get excited.

[jellisonlau]

"Apple has done it again, remaking the cell phone to a device that people would want to use"

You're saying that Apple just reinvented the cellphone? And what's that "a device that people wnat to use?"

So those of us who have been using cellphones all these years were just doing it very reluctantly?

This is the kind of *** that only hardcore apple fans would spew out.

I too was a mac fanatic and went through all the systems, from 7.0 till 9.2.

And I would have been happy to go on being a mac user but that incident with my Ipod convinced me that:

1. Apple does not stand behind its products. They refused to replace my 2 hr battery.

2. Apple uses hype to sell.

3. And some of this hype is downright dishonest.

[cowhide--2008]

Apple has done it again, remaking the cell phone to a device that people would want to use. Most cell's have to many hard to use features that make them hard to use. Now i will use this phone!

[amazedd]

Congratulations, an engineering feat.
- Unto Caesar