iPhone Coming to Cingular... and Only to Cingular

When Apple announced the iPhone earlier this month, it said the Cingular would be the exclusive provider of this smartphone.

This is going to be true for an unusually long time, at least in the United States. Apple has agreed that Cingular will be the only U.S. carrier to offer this device -- and any subsequent models -- for at least two years. Normally, exclusivity agreements are only for a few months.

And there's bad news for those who hope to buy an iPhone from Cingular and use it on another carrier's network: the devices will be locked to Cingular's network and, according to a report on Canada.com, "Special efforts have been made to make sure that the phones can't be unlocked."

An Overview of the Apple iPhone

The iPhone is Apple's upcoming combination smartphone and iPod.

(view large image)

This device will support the iTunes music service, and it will sport either 4 GB or 8 GB of storage. It will support both music and video, which will be playable on its 3.5-inch, 320-by-480-pixel, 160 ppi display.

In addition, this will be a quad-band GSM/GPRS phone. It will include EDGE, but not UMTS/HSDPA. It will, however, have Wi-Fi b/g and Bluetooth 2.0.

The iPhone will run what Apple promises is OS X, the same operating system this company's desktop and laptop computers run. It will be able to run some -- but not all -- specially selected OS X applications, including the Safari web browser.

It will have a touchscreen, but not include a stylus. Instead, users will be expected to control it with their fingertips.

This smartphone is expected to debut this summer from Cingular for $500 (4 GB) or $600 (8 GB).

Related Articles

• No Third-Party Applications for the iPhone
• iPhone: Impressive, Yes, but What Does It DO?

Thanks to headcronie for the tip.