The diverse abilities of the iPhone have opened-up new possibilities in the area of mobile application development. iPhone is a slim form-factor mobile phone, introduced by Apple Inc., which was the first to feature a large, high resolution, full color display that doubles-up as the touch-screen based keypad of the phone. Apart from the interesting interface, the phone is renowned for ‘Apps’ or third-party applications such as maps, games, music, news and GPS etc., that can be downloaded from the Apple store and run on the phone.

The touch-screen of the iPhone is a 9-cm scratch resistant glass which uses the liquid crystal display (LCD) for screen graphics. Touching the graphics with the finger activates the icon under it. If images or photographs are being viewed, then the thumb and forefinger can be dragged in opposite directions on the screen surface to ‘zoom’ into the image. This is the multi-touch feature in action. To make a call, the icons are replaced with numbers. They are shown on the top of the screen as they are being tapped and thus, calls can be made from the iPhone.

Games on the iPhone range from simple card games like solitaire to brain-games like chess and scrabble. Many games can be downloaded from the Apple store as well. The large screen can change its orientation accordingly if the phone is held horizontally (rather than upright) and all games can be played in either orientation. The games can be saved and resumed later. All these features make the iPhone a landmark device with the best products of mobile games development.

The apps for the iPhone include those that facilitate access to select websites of the iPhone partners. The content from news channels, dailies, television, and radio channels can be viewed by connecting to the websites of the respective media-houses. Other apps include tracking parcels sent or to be received by courier, mobile banking and personal finance services. Flight information and foreign language guides can also be accessed by the phone’s apps by connecting to the websites concerned. Such varied connectivity and data management ability of the iPhone opens new frontiers for professionals in the domain of mobile web development.