June 6th - 2008

WIRED OFFICE: iPhones coming soon to Canada

The Apple iPhone’s much-hyped debut in the U.S. almost a year ago left many Canadian technophiles anxiously awaiting the product’s release in Canada.

The Apple iPhone’s much-hyped debut in the U.S. almost a year ago left many Canadian technophiles anxiously awaiting the product’s release in Canada. Apparently, the wait will soon be over as Rogers Wireless recently announced it has signed a deal with Apple to offer the iPhone north of the border.
 
The good news for Canadian consumers is that the long delay in making the iPhone available here has provided a great opportunity to let the U.S. users be the “guinea pigs” for the product. Overall, the reviews for the iPhone have been positive, but before you decide to toss out your smart phone, and shell out about $500, make sure it’s the right device for you.
 
Like the Blackberry, Treo or Palm, the iPhone is a type of smart phone – a mobile multimedia and internet-enabled device that combines many of the features of a cellphone and a personal computer. Smart phones not only allow users to make standard voice calls, but also provide access to email, calendars, personal contacts, the Internet, music, video and various other functions.
 
Although the iPhone works like any other mobile phone, it must be hooked up to a personal computer (PC or Mac) with the latest version of Apple’s iTunes software to be activated. So far, Rogers Wireless has not provided any information regarding pricing for calling/data plans or contracts, but promises more announcements to follow soon.
 
The iPhone’s sleek package combines a standard mobile phone, an iPod, a camera, and several Internet applications all behind a 3.5-inch glass screen. The face of the iPhone has only one button, relying instead on a touch screen and virtual keyboard. Virtual buttons for the 16 main applications are located on the home screen.
 
Unlike most other phones, the iPhone does not use a stylus or keypad. Other than a power button, a mute button and a volume switch on the side and a very handy ‘home’ button, all other functions are handled by the ‘multi-touch’ screen. Different motions, finger combinations or taps will cause different results depending on the application. For entering text, the iPhone uses a virtual keyboard on the touch screen with a built-in spell check and predictive spelling functions. As you type, the phone will guess the word allowing for quicker data input.
 
Using your fingertips you can ‘flick’ rapidly through lists, such as contacts, photo files or song titles, as if the names were attached to a wheel. For web pages, placing your finger on the touch screen locks it to that section of the page, allowing you to drag the page, and zooming in and out on web pages or photographs is done by pinching or unpinching your index finger and thumb. The iPhone’s accelerometer is another nice feature which senses the orientation of the phone and adjusts the screen image accordingly, either landscape or portrait.
 
The iPhone is one of the few smart phones to be able to access Wi-Fi wireless networks. But, with high-speed data transfer limited to areas with Wi-Fi networks, the phone may not be a reliable device for showing listings to clients in the field. The web browser is a version of Apple’s Safari browser and will display most web pages normally. However, because the iPhone doesn’t support Flash or Java, most virtual tours won’t run properly. The iPhone also links to Google Maps, displaying street maps, local lists or aerial photos for any address. As well, live traffic information is displayed by color coded roads on the map.
 
iPhone connects to popular consumer email services, such as Yahoo, Gmail, AOL and Earthlink Voice and email are displayed as lists so messages can be retrieved in any order. Incoming email messages are fully formatted, including graphics. Users can also open and view - but not edit - Word, Excel and PDF attachments.
 
From the product reviews there are a number of features lacking on the iPhone. For example, there’s no memory card slot, no chat program, no voice dialing, the camera doesn’t have a flash, you can’t send photo messages, and you can’t capture video. Another complaint is that the keys on the virtual keyboard are too small to hit easily and accurately.
 
So the iPhone, as it stands, is probably not one of those tools you can’t get by without in your business. However, stay tuned because this is only the first version and Apple is promising enhancements. If you want to learn more, Apple has a very informative video about the iPhone’s features available at www.apple.com/iphone.

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