Apple Stock Soars Thanks To iPhone

(CBS)  The iPhone is sure to cause the latest case of gadget envy and already it's making waves in the stock market.

Thanks to Apple CEO Steve Job's iPhone announcement, his company's stock price soared Tuesday, reports CBS News science and technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg.

The iPhone will cut down on multitasking. It includes the music and video features from its iPod cousins but also global positioning, Google mapping software, Web surfing, e-mail and a phone.

More than 70 million iPods have been sold since they debuted in 2001 and during his keynote speech at MacWorld Conference & Expo on Tuesday in San Francisco, Jobs said his new "revolutionary product" will change everything.

The iPhone also has something called "visual voicemail" so you no longer have to check each message before skipping or deleting it. Jobs decided former Vice President Al Gore was worth listening to. He played Gore's voicemail for the audience.

"I wanted to say, congratulations on the iPhone. It is unbelievably cool," Gore said.

One of the iPhone's most significant innovations is that it has no buttons. Everything is controlled via touch screen.

"We're going to use a pointing device that we're all born with. It works like magic," Jobs said about the user's finger.

Some analysts are wary of Jobs' lofty claims. After all, Apple is not the first tech company to offer an all-in-one device. But you can't underestimate the power of that shiny logo.

"The iPhone's not the only thing that can do most of that stuff. But it's cool and well-designed — and it has the Apple chic about it," says Dave Hamilton, publisher of MacObserver.com.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Apple doesn't have a presence, reaction was mixed.

"Sometimes it's overkill, just too much for me sometimes," a man at the show said.

"Everyone loves iPod and what would you want but a phone attached to it?" one woman said.

The device won't be available until June, and it won't be cheap. The price tag will start at about $500. But if it replaces a lot of the devices we use today — cameras, iPods, Blackberrys and cell phones — then who knows how many people may be willing to pay the price?

[sjc_1]

Jobs gets a chance to make "insanely great" idea happen all the time. This is a dream come true for anyone with ideas that are tired of the "horse by committee" mentality in corporate management.

[random_radar]

Steve Jobs has the midas touch. Some people just get it right.

[edjohn66]

iphone!!!!

gotta have it!!!!

Seriously, I use a cell, digital camera, pda, email, and my ipod. It just makes sense... as well as cents... to put them all in a single device.

And the interface is lightyears beyond anything else I've seen on the market.

Yes, its cool. But the iphone is also the ultimate in utility and ease of use.

[Syndicate]

I had a chance to play with a Play Station 3 last night. That thing is awsome and I didn't even play a game on it. I was able to look at some pictures on my memory card. The PS3 was quick and responsive. It also had options for Video and Sound and this is what my gripe is about. I had video files on my Sd card but the PS3 wouldn't recognize the Quick time format my camera uses. Don't buy Kodaks for this reason alone. Maybe Kodak will fix this bug. The audio files were a WMA file. Yet the PS3 wouldn't find them either. I figured it would have played them. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong. My gripe is this Proprietary format that prevents me from using diffrent devices to look at diffrent files. I know a playstation has the power to play my video but, because of some Corprate Copyright Bull S**t I can't use it to watch my home movies. I can't listen to my music for the same reason without converting files. I think in the future I will make more of an effort to make sure my Cameras and other electronics use universal formats. In other words I won't buy something that uses encrypted proprietary software and hardware like sonys memory card. If it trys to police copyrights I don't want it.