Apple iPhones Enter Cingular Wireless Lineup
Author: Thomas Arouet

There is an old adage in business that states that when a market is hugely competitive--as is the cell phone market--the winner ends up being the customer. The cell phone offerings in the last few years have definitely proved this theory, first with super-sleek phones like the RAZR, then with mean music machines like the Sony Walkman phone and now with the Apple iPhone swelling the ranks of what customers can choose from.

Apple is a company well known to the American consumer. The Macintosh computer and the iTunes-iPod combination are two examples of two instances when Apple has hit a home-run with the buying public. Now, the new Apple iPhone also promises to be a good decision on the part of this company. Partnering with Cingular, Apple is launching a product that may very well change the competitive landscape of the cell phone market.

The iPhone Cell Phone Essentials
The iPhone is advertised as being three things in one. On the outside, it has the familiar look of a wide-screen iPod, whose music functions it shares with its dedicated cousin. Also, the iPhone has a full-featured built-in web browser that allows the user to surf the ''net and view the pages on the handset''s rather large screen. And naturally, the iPhone is also a cell phone. So we have 1) a music player with the familiar looks and feel of an iPod; 2) a full-featured web browser and 3) a cell phone all built into one device.

One of the things that Apple is touting as being a user-friendly innovation is the iPhone cell phone''s totally menu-driven format. If you are familiar with an iPod, you''ll immediately recognize this: pretty much everything on the iPhone works like the menu of your iPod, where you use your thumb to scroll through lists in which you can make your selection. While this may not be a breakthrough per se, it is refreshing to see that Apple has adapted it to voicemail messages. In other words, with the iPhone, you can not only scroll through the phone''s functions (as you can with other cell phones); but also, you can scroll through your voicemail messages, which you see displayed one after the other in the menu, and select the one you want to listen to.

Other Info on the iPhone
For now, the iPhone cell phone is only available for Cingular Wireless, although the popularity it promises to enjoy may change this. So far, there is no indication of what kind of deals may be associated with the iPhone, since it''s still rather early in the game. However, something tells me that we''ll know soon.

The iPhone cell phone is the latest manifestation of how the vibrant cell phone industry is jockeying to please the consumer. It promises to be a hit, in which case it will be exciting to see how other cell phone manufacturers will react. Let''s stay tuned.