The World Takes a Sip of Apple's Kool-Aid

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 9, 2007 — -- From the moment Apple CEO Steve Jobs walked onstage to deliver the keynote address at this year's Macworld expo in San Francisco, a knowing grin hinted that he was hiding a really great secret.

About 20 minutes into the speech, Jobs paused to take a sip of water and slowly made his way back to the front of the stage. Audience members, already nervously shifting in their seats, anticipated what they knew would come next.

"This is a day I've been looking forward to for over two years," Jobs told the thousands who had packed the Mascone Center for his speech. "Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along."

As the dynamic speaker slowly peeled back the curtain to show the device that every technophile in the world was waiting for, the crowd hooted and hollered at every feature Jobs revealed.

While bloggers and journalists had spent months theorizing about what a new cell phone from Apple might look like or anticipating the possible release of a full-screen video iPod, Apple did what it does best and pulled a fast one on them all.

"Today, we're introducing three revolutionary products," Jobs said as the crowd muttered in confusion. "The first product is a widescreen iPod … the second is a revolutionary cell phone … and the third is a breakthrough Internet communication device.

"Three things, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough Internet communication device. An iPod, a phone, an Internet communicator. An iPod, a phone and an Internet communication device. These are not three separate devices."

It finally started to sink in that Apple wasn't announcing a new line of products but one device that could do it all.

The Apple iPhone is almost all screen and makes up for the lack of controls -- there's only one button on the device -- with a patented touch-screen interface that allows users to make calls, text or e-mail their friends, play music, tap into video and photos and surf the Internet.