The "iDecade" - Notes on Apple's 2007 Macworld Conference

At this year's recent MacWorld conference, the annual product unveiling and corporate love fest held each year by Apple Computers, everyone was thinking one thing: where's the phone? How long do we have to wait for the phone? The truth is though, no one was expecting what Apple would deliver: the iPhone, a slickly designed, fully integrated, portable wi-fi online personal computer with a multi-touch screen that can be held in the palm of your hand.

It runs OSX, Apple's most recent operating system, browses the internet, acts as a cellular phone, a digital camera, a video player, an iPod with a memory of up to 8GB, and dozens of other features. Jobs demonstrated the device onstage through a simple touch system with no keyboard, and the audience was genuinely stunned. Apple, a company that has redefined modern design and technological innovation had again outdone itself. Whether or not the sales will be there is another thing (seriously though, the sales will definitely be there).

Retailing for $499-$599 and obtainable exclusively through Cingular, the iPhone will be available for sale in June. Although the true results will be seen when the product goes on the market and sales reports are in, just the idea of this device reveals how technological progress can often be confused with magic. A mere "device," if you can call it that, the iPhone provides consumers with everything that would be available on a Blackberry or other handheld professional communicators owned by businessmen in suits working for anonymous corporations, yet there's something more to it than just features, something beautiful and personal rather that merely an issue of function.

Somehow it's as if this little machine came down from the heavens and Steve Jobs is its prophet. In a case like this, believe the hype. Apple will move 5 million of these units within six months if not twice that amount (probably more).