Apple Archive

Is the iPhone Too Limited to Launch a Smartphone Revolution?

- 2007.01.19

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I needed some time to organize some things over the past two months, but I'm back now.

A few exciting things have happened in the tech world in that time. Windows Vista was released, and already a few bugs have emerged. The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas took place with new gadgets from a host of different companies, and there was the Macworld Expo.

iPhone Shortcomings

It's no surprised that the iPhone was unveiled at Macworld (though a bit surprising that Apple was able to call it the iPhone, due to Cisco's trademark - and there is a lawsuit pending). By now everyone has the features and specs down: GSM phone exclusively on Cingular, full-featured Web browser, Google Maps, visual voicemail, iChat-style text messaging, on screen keyboard, and rotatable screen with a sensor.

However, there are some pretty important things missing, as others have already pointed. The first is the ability to add your own applications to the iPhone.

Apple should give you more opportunities to expand the iPhone's capabilities, especially considering its size and price, such as a slot for SD cards (which is pretty much standard on high-end mobile phones these days - even my two-year-old Nokia has one, and it's just a standard candy bar shaped phone).

Another shortcoming is the battery. How come I can change the battery in my $150 Nokia but not in the $500-600 iPhone? What if I need more talk time? I can't buy a second battery and swap it in.

I'm also surprised that it only has a 2 megapixel camera. The Samsung a990, which is a Verizon phone, comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera, and so do many of the phones available in Japan.

Visual voicemail is a nice feature, albeit not really a necessary one. It doesn't matter to me what order I listen to my voicemail in. In fact, I prefer the default of the order in which they arrived. However, this is a Cingular exclusive right now - and they apparently needed something special to keep people from unlocking the phone and using it on another service.

This brings me to those who frequently travel outside the US. Quad-band "world phones" are already available and are meant to fill that need for those who need to use their phone while away on business. The iPhone, nice tool that it is, would not fill this function unless modified.

I need to have a phone that works in Canada, where I go to school, as well as the US, where my home is. Rogers is the carrier that Cingular partners with in Canada, and my concern is that I may not be able to use some iPhone features, such as visual voicemail, when I'm not on Cingular's signal. (It's certainly possible that this will be addressed by the time the phone is released.)

Then there's the price. $500-600 is a lot to spend on a phone - any phone - especially now that you can get a smartphone like the Treo or Motorola Q for under $400 with a contract. Those smartphones have the ability to add extra applications as well as an SD slots and removable batteries.

They're not made by Apple and doesn't have as elegant a design. In a sense, the iPhone is a lot like the original iPod: Overpriced but elegant and geared toward the user experience in every sense, from sending text messages to browsing the Web to synching with your computer. At this point it only synchs with Macs, but that's sure to change if it proves to be popular.

Will it revolutionize the cell phone industry?

The iPod Revolution

It's not nearly as much of a revolution as the iPod was.

In some ways, the iPod was like the Japanese economy car was to the auto industry in the 1970s, the tiny little Honda Civic and Toyota Tercel being the most famous examples. They were small, handled relatively well, were decent in bad weather (thanks to front wheel drive), and got good fuel economy - as opposed to large American cars like the Pontiac Grandville and Ford Torino.

The Japanese economy cars caught the American automakers off-guard and resulted in models such as the Ford Pinto and Cadillac Cimarron, neither of which was done right. It could be argued that the American companies never got it right - the Chevy Aveo isn't even made by GM!

In the late 90s, MP3 players were difficult to use; required special, badly designed software to transfer songs; transferred songs extremely slowly (often using USB 1.1 or older, even slower serial ports); and had extremely limited capacity (typically 32-128 MB). People preferred portable CD players like the Sony Discman, in no small part due to the extensive CD collections they already had.

With iTunes, Apple created an easy way to let people rip their CDs to their computer, organize them in a library, create playlists, and burn them to their own mix CDs. And when the iPod came out, it was just a matter of copying those playlists to the iPod.

The iPod addressed a clear problem with MP3 players that were affecting their widespread adoption - they weren't designed to be user-friendly.

Will There Be an iPhone Revolution?

What problem does the iPhone try to fix?

While mobile phones aren't necessarily easy to use, they aren't impossible either, as any teenage girl will tell you. There really is no problem affecting their widespread adoption and use.

The iPhone tries to make it all easier, which may or may not be a good thing, as it tends to cut out features, some of which people may use.

Will it sell? I don't know about others, but I can't until I can get one in June. LEM

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