Jobs to unveil new and improved iPhone
Apple's popular device may have more software and a faster network. But price will be key.
Will the next iPhone be thinner, cheaper, perhaps cooler? Will it come with new features such as video chat and a global positioning system? For months, speculation has swirled.
Today, Steve Jobs, Apple Inc.'s chief executive, is expected to end the guessing game and unveil the second version of the iPhone at Apple's developer conference in San Francisco.
This is not just any updated product. Some analysts say the future of Apple depends on the iPhone becoming a consumer hit of global proportions."Apple's stock is going to go where the iPhone goes," said Andy Hargreaves, senior research analyst with Pacific Crest Securities. "It's the new growth driver."
The key question, they say, is whether Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., cuts the price of the iPhone to dramatically boost sales.
On June 29, 2007, Apple began selling the 8-gigabyte iPhone at $599 in the U.S. with lines of people standing outside Apple stores. It quickly became a cultural icon (with a cameo appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony) and changed how people viewed mobile phones.
The iPhone is a combination mobile phone, Internet surfing gadget and digital entertainment player for listening to music or watching video. It is being rolled out slowly in international markets. Apple started selling the phone in countries such as Britain and Germany and is expected to start distributing in Asia soon.
The phone hasn't been without controversy. Less than three months after it went on sale, Apple dropped the price $200, angering customers who had already bought it. And the company frustrated software developers by limiting the kinds of development that could be done on the phone.
Meanwhile, some began using the phone "unlocked," without AT&T Inc.'s cellphone service, and with software applications not approved by Apple. Some of those people found that their iPhones did not work after Apple issued a software update.
Apple has tried to mollify the grousers. IPhone owners angry about the price drop received $100 in store credit. The company created a software developer's kit for making features and services for the phone, and Jobs is expected to launch an iPhone "applications store" today that will sell programs made by outside developers.
That was all prelude.
Riding on the iPhone's shoulders is the expectation that if it is a big success, it could spur sales of Apple's Macintosh personal computers, analysts say. The popularity of the iPod is often credited with the rebound of the Mac because of its "halo effect:"
