Apple and Cingular announced that Cingular, the largest wireless carrier in the US, will be Apple’s exclusive US carrier partner for Apple’s revolutionary iPhone unveiled today. As part of this multi-year partnership, Apple and Cingular are working together to provide innovative new features to mobile phone users, such as iPhone’s pioneering and unique Visual Voicemail, a first on any mobile phone in the world.
“Apple chose Cingular because they are the best and most popular carrier in the US,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in the press release. “We are thrilled to be offering our revolutionary new iPhone exclusively with Cingular, and look forward to working together with them to create some wonderful new features for our customers.”
“By partnering with Apple, we are continuing our commitment to raising the bar for customers,” said Stan Sigman, Cingular’s president and CEO, in the release. “We think the iPhone is one of the most innovative devices ever created, and we look forward to letting our customers be the first in the world to experience the future of mobile phones.”
iPhone’s unique Visual Voicemail was co-developed by Apple and Cingular. Visual Voicemail makes voicemail as fast and convenient as email by allowing users to go directly to any of their voice messages without listening to any of the prior messages.
iPhone will be available in the US beginning in June 2007 in a 4GB model for $499 and an 8GB model for $599, and will work in combination with Apple’s iTunes running on either a PC or Mac.
iPhone will be sold in the US through Apple’s retail and online stores and through Cingular’s retail and online stores.
See Apple’s new iPhone here.
This sucks. Good bye T-Mobile.
I wanted a Macworld and all I got was “boob tube” and “jabber box”. Any rumors when Apple Inc will be revealing details of the next generation of CPUs and OS X. You know, computer stuff.
Hotness…..too bad they dont make one without the ipod ability for less. now i have to replace my phone and ipod. and my nano is gonna be worthless when i get this…
stupid stupid stupid….. Why did they do this.
Europe has to wait for a year? Sounds very odd to me. Compared to european standards, the US carrier tech, networks etc. are pretty lowtech – so I really wonder what the issue is here.
What’s so unique about “Visual Voicemail”? Right now, w/Cingular and a 2-year-old Sony Ericsson phone, I get a visual listing of all voicemails and can select the one I want to listen to. Also provides visual info re who called and the date/time.
Maybe there’s something I’m missing…
why the hell lock it into cingular??
what are the chances of someone figuring out how to unlock it to move to another carrier? (if thats even possible w/ iphone)
Bijou
Look at all the pages for iPhone at the bottom on Apple’s site. This device has yet to gain FCC approval hence it not going on sale until June. CE approval (the European equivalent) generally takes longer to achieve.
Cingular ripped me off…and can kiss my @ss. Also, cell phones suck!! Nothing but an unnessisary time and money drain!
Steve has your number. We, of the computer world, are the victims.
Guess I’ll venture over to the Vista web site and see what all that’s about since Steve just announced Apple’s withdrawal from the computer business.
As I say, here in Ireland you can buy most phones and then choose your preferred network. This is the only really bad thing about it so far. The US will surely follow suit in a couple of years, well I hope they do for the sake of most of you on here.
Goodbye verizon….
Funny that my contract ends in July…
MDN Word: “pay” As in I’ll def pay for one of these…. Whenever the anchors of CNN go live and say “ohhhhhhhh man I have to have one!” It’s a good sign.
According to recent Consumer Reports, Apple enjoys highest customer satisfaction, while Cingular is at the opposite end of the scale. As current Cingular’s customer I certainly hope Apple will infect it, and not the other way around.
Cingular= AT&T . No deal for me. ATT was bad before they broke up the phone company, now that they are coming togather again thy will be worse.
This is probably the biggest product announcements that Apple have ever made and most of the people before me seem to be complaining about some aspect pr another. You miss the point.
You might have seen how the iPod halo effect worked. When Windows users see that the cool things they do on their iPhones are ~exactly~ the same as on a Mac, they will get accustomed to OS X without even realising it. Before long, OS X will no longer feel unfamiliar to those who don’t use Macs. Switching will be easier.
On the face of it, it’s not a Mac announcement, but the benefits to Mac sales are going to be huge.
Cingular.. meh.. I’m not thrilled Apple is marrying itself to a carrier that has low customer satisfaction.. I’m currently on Verizon.. they have okay reception but a horrendous customer hostile record on technology: slow to adopt new tech, quick to absolutely cripple it beyond all hope of usefulness, eager to tie in open standards to Verizon only solutions that cost more and do less..
I’ll be glad to leave Verizon behind, but I’m sad that Apple didn’t have the kahones to go it alone, and really shake up the cellular industry. I guess Apple felt that it’s product, while superior is costly and will start with a small “niche” of the market at its current price point, and wanted some help getting started. Maybe down the road, Apple will bring the cost down and volume up and be more able to stand on its own two feet and call its own shots.. until then I guess we’re stuck with Cingular.
I just hope that when I get this phone, my experience with Cingular won’t ruin my experience with the beautiful iPhone.
Also kudos to Apple for sticking to the already popularized name of “iPhone.” It’s worth whatever licencing fees they have to pay, IMO.
MDN keyword “quality” I’ll let that one speak for itself.
I DON’T WANT THE DAMN iPHONE. I JUST WANT AN iPOD. WHY COULDN’T THEY OFFER THIS IN A THICKER 30gb VERSION WITHOUT THAT PHONE CRAP?!
DAMN YOU APPLE! DAMN YOUUUUUUU!!!!!!
$600!!! I TRANSFERRED $600 FROM MY ING ACCOUNT LAST WEEK AND WAS WILLING TO ORDER THIS ASAP! I HAVE A PHONE, IT WORKS FINE. I DON’T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH CINGULAR!
DAMMIT! I’M FURIOUS! I W–0@@@@$%r$@@! I’M ABOUT TO EXPLODE, FUCK!
AlanAudio:
“You might have seen how the iPod halo effect worked. When Windows users see that the cool things they do on their iPhones are ~exactly~ the same as on a Mac, they will get accustomed to OS X without even realising it. Before long, OS X will no longer feel unfamiliar to those who don’t use Macs. Switching will be easier.”
Perhaps.. but in 2007, Apple is aiming at 1% of the cell market.. hardly a large enough pool of people to “teach the masses” how Apple tech works. It’s price point is right in line with “early adopter fanboi” crowd that has a lot of money to burn or already has Apple products. When Apple figures how to drop the price below the 300-400 range where carriers typically tend to offer cell phones for “Free” then we’ll see this thing really take off, IMO.
Until then, it’s a great niche product that those who can afford it will likely love and those who don’t may want it but until they can actually afford one, it just wont have that kind of mass impact.
I’m savin my penies now, and I’ll have one at launch, only time will tell how many Apple can sell in 2007 with only half the year to sell them in.
Maybe in a few years we’ll see.
So, when will we see these in Canada? My boss is itching to buy one literally right now…
MW: “Remember” us Canucks!
There are never any guarantees what Steve will introduce at Macworld, but there is always the guarantee that people will complain about it. Apple just announced a phone that makes all our phones look like plastic cups attached by a string, and most of you are complaining about Cingular. Just like everyone who complained about the switch to Intel, eventually you’ll come around.
I’ll bet unlocked versions will be on eBay within a week of launch, so Euros and T-Mobile customers will be able to buy them…but it will be probably a 50-100% premium. But if it is utilizes proprietary Cingular services to access all things Mac, then we’re sunk.
Cingular sucks. Period. Steve well knows this.
The reason for the Apple/Cingular partnership is very, very simple: Apple got the money deal they wanted from Cingular.
That’s all. It is ALWAYS about the money and now, the real payoff: a hord of lemmings across the country falling over each other to get to one of these cuties.
In the meantime, the COMPUTER business seems to be done at Apple. The name change says it all. The next version of the name will be “Apple Toys, Inc.”
The reason it’s Cingular is because it’s the largest company in the US that uses SIM cards and GSM. This means that the phones, when unlocked, will work in Europe. Why make a separate version just for Verizon?
“the iPhone is way too expensive”
Hmm…where have I heard this before?
Oh yeah; the 1st gen iPod…
I’m glad Steve runs Apple and not you guys.