Apple's iPhone Launch Delayed

A message for gadget fans expecting the launch of Apple's hybrid iPhone at January's MacWorld Expo : brace yourself for disappointment. The device is being billed as an iPod-phone combination, and rumours of its features have flooded the web in recent months. Wall Street analysts say the speculation of a delayed launch is even affecting Apple's share price. "Based on our checks, we believe the timing of Apple's iPhone commercial launch is around late first quarter 2007 to early second quarter 2007," CIBC World Markets analyst Ittai Kidron wrote last week. But Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research, believes the speculation is "starting to get out of hand", since Apple has never even acknowledged the device's existence. "Is it possible to call a product that hasn't been acknowledged, much less shipped, delayed?" Gartenberg wrote in a blog post.

MacWorld - held in San Francisco between January 9 and 12 - has long been the venue for Apple's major product announcements, and each year Apple-watchers speculate on what Apple chief executive Steve Jobs may unveil. Mr Jobs, who gives the keynote speech at each MacWorld, is famous for saving the most significant announcements for the end of his speech. At MacWorld 2005 he unveiled the iPod Shuffle, while this year his "one more thing" was the MacBook Pro, which saw Apple's laptops move to an entirely new architecture. This trend may come back to bite Apple, since there is now an expectation for the company to unveil a revolutionary product each year. More so than any other technology company, a sub-par announcement from Apple will be detrimental to both its stock price and goodwill. MacWorld 2007's major announcement was previously expected to be the iPhone, but rumours of a delay have shifted speculation to a home theatre content streaming device called iTV. Apple demonstrated iTV at a press conference in September, but a commercial product hasn't been formally announced. At the time, Mr Jobs said the formal unveiling would occur in the first quarter of next year.

IPhone rumours began circulating as early as 2002, but it's only recently that specific details have emerged. On August 7, Apple filed a US patent application for a phone and music player combination.

Taken from www.theage.com.au