The iPhone is an Internet-enabled multimedia mobile phone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It has a multi-touch screen with virtual keyboard and buttons. The iPhone's functions include those of a camera phone and a portable media player (iPod), in addition to text messaging and visual voicemail. It also offers Internet services including e-mail, web browsing, and local Wi-Fi connectivity. It is a quad-band mobile phone that uses the GSM standard, and hence has international capability. It supports the EDGE data technology. Following the success of iPods, Apple announced the iPhone in January 2007. The announcement was preceded by rumors and speculations that circulated for several months. [5] The iPhone was introduced in the United States on June 29, 2007 with much media frenzy,[citation needed] in the United Kingdom, Germany and France in November 2007, and in Ireland in March 2008.[6] It was named Time magazine's Invention of the Year in 2007. A version of iPhone is expected to be introduced in 2008 that is capable of operating on faster 3G cellular networks