iPhone Envy

The world's gadget manufactures are in Las Vegas this week, hawking their wares at the annual Consumer Electronics Show. This event always includes some drool-inducing product announcements, and this year has been no exception. We've seen a satellite dish that you carry can around in a briefcase, a new gadget from the makers of the Slingbox for watching YouTube videos in your living room, and, of course, a giant flat screen TV. But so far the showstopper at CES isn't at CES. It's at MacWorld.

Apple's Steve Jobs once again proved he knows how to launch a product today, announcing the release of a new portable device that will "reinvent the phone" (read a minute by minute account , or go with this sober summary from the New York Times). Although it's unclear whether the phone will live up to Jobs's lofty promise, a quick look at the specs on Apple's website makes me look askance at my brand new BlackBerry Pearl (and every other cell phone, for that matter). The iPhone has a touch screen keyboard, Wi-Fi and cellular Internet access, the Mac OS X operating system, and can play MP3s and widescreen videos just like an iPod.

How could you not love this thing?

Max Chafkin

Senior writer Max Chafkin has profiled companies such as Yelp, Zappos, Twitter, Threadless, and Tesla for the magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.