Apple has got it spectacularly right with the iPhone in many ways - but questions remain. Here are some ME thoughts...
Everyone's talking about the Apple announcement. It could be the biggest news of the year - and it's only the second week of Jan. From a brief digestion of the facts, we reckon Apple has created a wonderful high-end smartphone with some extraordinary innovations.The content business should be delighted. ME spoke to Symbian last night, and although the OS maker could feel threatened by the iPhone it genuinely believes that the device will promote multi-functional mobile apps to the whole industry's benefit.
So here are five winning iPhone innovations - and a few questions.
User interface: This is what Apple is famous for and where its products – from Mac to iPod have always scored. iPhone is no different. There are no hard numeric keys, just a big touchscreen controlled by the user’s finger via a new UI called multi-touch.
Full internet browsing: With such a big screen, an intelligent UI and Apple’s Safari web browser pre-installed, the iPhone permits full internet browsing. It also includes built-in Google and Yahoo! search plus Google Maps.
Article continues belowAdvertisement
Strong focus on the basics: Steve Jobs has long believed phones are not great at voice and text, so the iPhone lets users make calls by simply pointing at a name or number, syncs contacts from PC, Mac or internet service and has an idiot-proof menu for dialling, pausing, creating conference calls etc. There’s also ‘Visual Voicemail’ for a listing of messages and a QWERTY soft keyboard for SMS.
Improved music and TV navigation: Apple fans will be delighted with Cover Flow, which lets them scroll through lists of songs and artists with their finger almost like an old-fashioned jukebox. Also, iPhone offers a new way to watch TV and movies with touch controls for play-pause, chapter forward-backward and volume. Crucially it will sync with the forthcoming Apple TV service.
Sensors: The iPhone detects ambient light and adjusts the screen accordingly, its built-in accelerometer detects a switch from portrait to landscape and automatically changes the display. It even turns the screen off when lifted to the ear.
And those nagging doubts...
It’s expensive: $499 or $599 in the US. And there’s a question mark over whether operators will subsidise it unless they can tweak it for their own ends. This is the usual practice, but would Apple allow this?
It doesn’t allow over the air iTunes downloads: Users must still sync via a Mac or PC. Hardly revolutionary. But then what would operators think if it did embrace OTA?
More iPhone models needed: Look at Nokia, Sony Ericsson et al, each with dozens of new device releases a year. The market dictates that consumers want novelty. The iPhone is superb in many ways and will find many buyers. But it will remain a niche smartphone for Apple obsessives unless it is constantly re-invented and made available to the mass market.
