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The iPhone Tour Guide: What we now know

by Greg Healy on Jun 26, 2007 at 05:25 PM

iPhone Page

The iPhone launch is only days away, and many details pertaining to it are being released and leaked like wild fire. Yesterday, Apple released a Guided Tour of the iPhone on its website that gives us a great look into the interface of the iPhone, and the various applications. The tour provides an in-depth look at some features of the iPhone we already knew about, but also gives us a peek into places we have never been in the iPhone before.

In Leopard, Apple have said they are trying implement a consistent interface, and it looks like they are going to do the same thing with their website. The iPhone section of the Apple website saw another update (I think this is #3), which makes it looks more like the Downloads Page, and iPod page. After watching the iPhone video twice, I watched it again listening for subliminal messages taking a few notes.

We now know how to power the iPhone down. Holding down the sleep/wake button will reveal a red slider. Just like unlocking the iPhone, sliding this slider will power the iPhone down.

Bob, the guy giving the tour, referenced using the keypad as the “old-fasioned way” each time he talked about it during the video. I thought this was interesting.

The button toolbar at the bottom of the iPhone is customizable. With the drag-and-drop ease we have come to know and love on the iPhone, you can re-arrage and change any of the buttons you wish.

We got a look at the new headphones that Apple is shipping with the iPhone. They look just like ear buds, but feature a little rectangular button that is used to answer/end calls, and play/pause the music. A double-click will advance one song. These ear buds look pretty cool, and I expect that a lot of people will just use these ones instead of their own because of the button.

We got an in-depth look at Google Maps that debunked a few rumors such as GPS in the iPhone, and gave us a look at a few features. In addition to what we already knew about the Google Maps, we saw that you can use Google Traffic. Plus, you can get turn-by-turn directions just like the desktop application. When navigating, tapping on the iPhone’s screen with 2 fingers will zoom out, just as tapping with 1 finger will let you zoom in.

You have the option of changing the search box in Safari to either search Yahoo! or Google.

One nice little button that is shown in Safari is the “.com” button. When typing in a URL, hitting “.com” will append .com to the end of whatever you were typing. I like this because almost every URL that anyone will type in Safari will end in “.com” so it will save people time.

The iPhone supports viewing PDF’s and Microsoft Word Documents. This is great news, now all the iPhone needs is flash and it will be all set. Navigating a PDF or .doc is as simple as the pinch to zoom and dragging to move around.

The biggest thing that I found about this video, is that we got a look at the iPhone’s Settings. The iPhone will have an Airplane mode, where no WiFi, Bluetooth or phone signals will be emitted. You can also set the iPhone to vibrate. There are a bunch of built-in ringtones (only one of the ones Bob listened to sounded like ones that I would use) but there didn’t seem to be a place to add your own.

Also, there were iPhone apps that didn’t get a mention. We didn’t get to see the Calendar, Camera, Clock, Calculator or Notes (maybe Bob has something against the letter “C”).

Those are just a few things that I noticed throughout the video, if I missed something, sound off in the comments.

Watch [iPhone Guided Tour]


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