iPhone tour available on Apple's site

The longest iPhone commercial you'll ever see is available on Apple's Web site.

The company on Friday posted a 20-minute guided tour of the device that is one of the most exhaustive looks yet at that iPhone thing you might have heard about. A really nice, enthusiastic man wearing a black shirt (no, not that one) takes you through the various features of the iPhone, including making phone calls, listening to music, sending e-mail, browsing the Web, and using applications like Google Maps.

Take a 20-minute tour of the iPhone on Apple's site, and keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times.

(Credit: Apple)

Alas, the technical details we've all been waiting for are not to be found. But if you're looking for a sense of how the user interface works on the iPhone, this is a good place to start. There didn't seem to be a whole lot of new things Apple hasn't disclosed, but the company does address some of the early suspicions about the touch screen keyboard.

Apple recommends that "it's easiest to begin typing with just your index finger," gradually working your way up to two-thumb BlackBerry-style typing. That won't be hard for the hunt-and-peckers in this office.

The video also shows how the iPhone predicts what you might be about to type, but it does it in a little window above the line you're actually typing. So if it screws up, you don't have to erase the wrong word it chose, you can just ignore the prediction.

"In about a week you'll be typing faster on the iPhone than on any other small keyboard, especially if you trust the intelligence of the keyboard," according to the nice man in the video. In exactly a week, I'll be ready for another vacation.

[boris Bengin]

That sold it for me.

Apple did a very wise thing by posting that guided tour. By doing
so, they deflated some of the hype around the product and
generated enthusiasm based on actual information.
Too much hype (and hype that wasn't even created by Apple, just
by bloggers and tech sites) was beginning to work against it.
I suspect people who were on the fence about the iPhone have now
been swayed to getting one, such as myself.

[Fil0403]

The sells to any weak mind.

Too bad they didn't do other "very wise things" like adding 3G capability, make the battery user-replaceable, cut the 2-year contract, cut the price and add more memory. By not doing so, they created a good-looking expensive and fragile not-so-smart smartphone. Too much hype is also responsability of the company that releases 0 information about a product that everyone knows it is developing for something like 5 years and still denies it and also responsability of the usually ignorant Apple fanboys who would give $500 for a brick if there would be an Apple logo on it. I suspect people who already knew you can have more than what iPhone gives you buying any Windows Mobile 6 smartphone and, with that, spending less money than what the iPhone costs won't change their minds with a boring and biased 20-minutes advertisement from the manufacturer of the product in question.

[dante1811]

huh?

Did they actually say hunt-and-*******?

[Fil0403]

iFlop biased tour avilable on the manufacturer's site

"In about a week you'll be typing faster on the iPhone than on any other small keyboard, especially if you trust the intelligence of the keyboard"

I would say something like "In about a year you'll be regretting having to "type faster" on a broken fragile touchscreen."

[ronmtec]

yer a shrill Bill shill

how can you say this about a phone you've never used? (Mr. Ballmer)

[anand_dh]

Have any of you tried the top of the line phones available today?

I have a Nokia N95 (I'll get the iPhone too) and its features and third party software available for it are way ahead of the iPhone. I hope Apple adds these features soon to the iPhone as the user interface looks fantastic on it. Some of the features on the N95 (including third party software) that I hope will find its way on to the iPhone are
1. Sync with Microsoft Exchange
2. Advanced call management - allows you to setup rules to automatically reject calls and send an SMS to the caller or divert the call to voicemail, based on the time of day, whether you are at the office or home, whether you are in a meeting or not,...and the rules possible are endless.
3. SIP client - this is tightly integrated into the N95 and basically you can setup any one of the many Voip providers that use standards based SIP. Most of these providers provide plans for unlimited calling, saving you expensive cellular air time minutes.
4. Built-in GPS, this is really great, you can then search for things on yahoo/google around where you are currently