iPhone - YAB

iPhone was announced in Jan2007 - then became most discussed - was launched in June2007 - and sold like an iPhone
(no comparison is found for iphone sale yet ;>).

Dust is still not settled and now iPhone3G will be out in mid-2008
and.,

• Its interesting to note Nucleus RTOS being a part of all the iPhone show, but less noticed. As the world sees Mac OS-X driving the iPhone, the infineon baseband runs Nucleus too for low level OS services, and its very much needed for modem real-time requirements and further, Nucleus known for its small memory footprint (where complete system can be sclaed down to 13kb including code and data ;P )
  
  
• ARM being the core processor, running at 620MHz makes it as the fastest smartphone available in market (may be atleast i'm not aware of any available nokia, sony-ericsson mobiles running at speeds higher than 350MHz). This coupled with cool UI + using LLVM for OpenGL, has taken user-experience to new bounds in hand-held devices..
  
  
• just like ipod, linux can power iphone too (not deployed much like ipod, may be coz iphone OS X UI was pretty cool)
  
  
• Profit to Apple through iPhone less is negligable when compared to the profit share it gets from partner carriers (Device price - $400 for 8GB. $1000+ from carriers per user per year, with AT&T plan)
  As far as apple is concerned, this makes sense to launch only locked iPhone through carriers and if apple releases open unlocked handsets, device price might be expected to match carrier revenue share.

It will be interesting to see when/how/at-what-price/at-which-plan/through-which-carrier, iPhone will be 'launched officially' in India..

Links
Apple iPhone
Wikipedia iPhone