iPhone news

With Internet connection becoming prevalent in every household, irrespective of the work area and geographical location, voice communication over Internet Protocol is understandably catching up. As a result, multitudes of Internet phones or iPhones are being introduced in the market.

The latest to join the crowd is the renowned Apple brand. All set to launch its own collection of iPhones in Asia in 2008, Apple recently showcased its iPhone for the public at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. 

Speaking about its appearance, the Apple iPhone looks very elegant and stylish.  By far, the iPhone offers the most simple and sleek design, further complemented by its immaculate and innate user interface.  Though bigger in size than a fashionable handset, the iPhone can easily be kept in a shirt’s pocket with less than 12mm thickness.

The iPhone unlocks as you slide your finger from left to right on the lower half of the screen.  The opening screen or home screen shows menus viz. Text, Calendar, Camera, Photos, Calculator, Stocks, Maps, Weather, Notes, Clock and Settings.  The four functions of the iPhone, namely Phone, Mail, Web and iPod, are given at the bottom of the screen.  The iPhone sports 8GB memory and $599 USD price tag with contract.

What can be seen as sad news is that the iPhone is not an open platform and thus cannot install additional third party applications. Any updates to software needs to come through Apple.

The device boasts of an 89mm screen, which is a major part of the face of the handset.  The colored screen is very bright and offers high resolution.  The iPhone is button less. To type, you need to use both thumbs on the touch-sensitive QWERTY screen.  To zoom in, you need to gesture pinch and stretch over the screen.  The Home button brings you back to the home screen from anywhere among the menu items.

As soon as you go for mapping service by Google, the iPhone displays a local map with red push pin marker dropped from the top of the screen to mark the location.  The iPhone offers orientation changes at the instance of its tipping on its side accordingly.  The multi-touch feature allows zooming in and out and panning in no time. The iPhone offers enough memory to support multi-tasking without a lag.

Yet another limitation to its credit, the phone does not support Wi-Fi technology for synching or direct communication with other iPhones. However, the wired connection is faster, as well as, charges the handset side by side.  Further, the iPhone does not support 3G connectivity. At a time when HSDPA services and WiMax technology are thriving, Apple has chosen to forgo 3G connectivity in favor of better battery life.

However, the awaited commercial success will only reinstate the tall claims of prudence at the end of the management of Apple, which has chosen in favor of a taller and wider design, a closed system with Wi-fi limitations and lack of next generation mobile technology, to come up with a seamless integration of hardware and software in the form of its iPhone.

Here is a list of posts that contain the Iphone word per day for the last 30 days.

Get your own chart!

Cisco, the worldwide leader in networking, has sued Apple Inc., in San Francisco federal court on Wednesday, 10 January 2007, for Trademark Infringement for the later’s new mobile product, iPhone. ‘iPhone’ has been a registered trademark of Cisco’s voice-over-internet services by Linksys, a division of Cisco. Cisco had obtained iPhone trademark after its acquisition of Infogear in 2000. Infogear had possessed the trademark ‘iPhone’ in March 20, 1996.

With its lawsuit, Cisco is seeking the immediate relief to prevent Apple from using its trademark. It had also showed interest for negotiations with Apple Inc., offering a solution to Apple to use the trademark with Cisco’s legal permission. According to Cisco, Apple had approached them many years ago, seeking the permission to use the name, and the two companies were in the process of negotiation. But on Tuesday, 9th January 2007, Apple’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, introduced the iPhone at the annual Macworld Conference and Expo, and this announcement literally stirred Cisco to file a suit against them putting a veil to further negotiations on this matter.

However, Apple Inc. defies Cisco’s arguments stating that Apple is entitled to use the trademark as their product is materially different from that of Cisco. Apple’s spokeswoman Natalie Kerris termed Cisco’s move as ‘silly’ and mentioned that Apple is the first company to use the name iPhone for a cell phone, while many other companies have been using the same trademark for products which are quite similar to that of Cisco’s which use the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

Industry experts feel the trademark issue is more than just an ‘image struggle’. As cellular technology and Internet technology are witnessing a revolutionary convergence, the possibility of both the companies reviewing their current products and coming up with exactly similar products cannot be ruled out.

Erik Suppiger, a networking specialist at Pacific Growth Equities, envisaged the possibility of Cisco adding innovative cellular functions to its existing iPhone, adding more memory and functions and thus overlapping with Apple iPhone at one point in the future.  Cisco’s rigorous acquisitions in the past one year and CEO John Chambers’ ambition to conquer the market with more consumer electronic products go hand-in-hand with Suppiger’s prediction and magnifies the intensity of the legal battle.

According to Financial analyst Jonathan Hoopes, who conducts research on various companies including Apple in ThinkEquity Partners LLC, NewYork, this infringement is a planned strategy from the Apple house just before the launch of the iPhone; and by not settling the issue with Cisco, they have caught the headlines of the business dailies and got a bigger hit in the minds of their customers. According to him, there is a possibility that Apple concede to Cisco for using the name iPhone for their IP telephone handset after the market gossips fall back to normal and re-christen its product or may just drop the ‘i’ before it making it read ‘Apple Phone.’ Apple Inc., which has the habit of changing the names of its products very comfortably, may not find the latest option difficult to accept.

The promising future prospects of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has led to consistent and perpetual improvisation in the concept and technology of Internet Phones or iPhones, for the convenience of the Internet users and to match their preferences.

Voice-over-IP (VoIP) implementations give us a taste of luxury and economy hand in hand, as they carry voice traffic viz. telephone calls and faxes over an IP network. The ever–growing popularity of VoIP can be easily explained by the utilities on offer. VoIP not only offers low cost phone calls, but also provides add on services and unified messaging that merge data and voice infrastructures.  A VoIP system comprises of Gateway/Media Gateway, Gatekeeper, Call agent, Media Gateway Controller, Signaling Gateway and a Call manager.

VoIP communicates with an array of networks for transmitting multimedia messages like voice, video, fax and data, using Internet Protocols. One of the widely implemented protocols is SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) - a textual client-server base protocol that uses a simple protocol structure to provide the market with fast operation, flexibility, scalability and multi-service support.

Designed as a part of the overall IETF multimedia data, SIP controls architecture currently incorporating protocols such as RSVP, RTP RTSP, SAP and SDP, and yet the functionality and operation of SIP is independent of these protocols. SIP creates, modifies and terminates sessions that include Internet multimedia conferences, Internet telephone calls and multimedia distribution.

The name mapping and redirection services supported by SIP facilitate implementation of ISDN and intelligent Network telephony subscriber services. In turn, SIP facilitates personal mobility that uses a unique personal identity.  SIP is not restricted to any specific conference protocol. SIP can be conveniently used by the Internet telephony gateways that connect to Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) parties to set up calls.

To elaborate the functionality of SIP, callers and the called participants are identified by their SIP addresses when making a SIP call. The caller first locates the appropriate server and then sends a SIP request. SIP in turn steers an invitation, which is also the most common SIP operation. SIP request can be redirected or even used for triggering on a chain of new SIP requests by proxies. SIP messages can be transmitted using both TCP and UDP.

Recently, Linksys - a division of Cisco Systems, has unveiled the iPhone voice solutions and products that include the WIP330 iPhone. Wireless-G IP Phone or WIP330 is integrated in the SIP VoIP protocol to offer users to access music, photos, and streaming video from sources on the Internet so that they combine the product with wireless video cameras like the Linksys Wireless-G Compact Video Camera (WVC54GC), to create a home monitoring solution.