Why iPhone will work, and won't?

NEW DELHI: Six long years and five generations of iPod later, Apple is back with another cool product - iPhone - which the company's Chief Executive Steve Jobs calls "Magical," "Revolutionary" and "Super-smart". And we don’t entirely disagree with him. Going by the iconic success of iPod, the 'think different' company has rolled out a near ‘complete gizmo’ which experts feel is aimed at protecting its own music player's future from the growing breed of music phones.

Though Apple occupies almost 75 per cent of the digital music player market - has set an an ambitious target for iPhone, analysts’ opinion is divided over iPhone's future. Here's why iPhone could prove to be a different ballgame for Apple than an iPod?

1. At least six more months before it hits the stores! The iPhone will be available in the US in June 2007, Europe in late 2007, and the Asians will have to wait for at least a year.

2. Apple doesn’t have expertise in building phones. Putting together a phone with so many features is far more complex than a music player as it requires much more technical expertise to port so many radios and transistors and also ensure excellent quality in all the functions, including voice and inter-operability of standards and modes. Moreover, the competition is fierce: it is a multi-pronged battle with Microsoft Zune on one hand and Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung on the other. RIM’s Backberry and Palm too become direct competition. The phone makers already have evolved their music phones while Microsoft has the advantage of having Windowes Mobile 5.0 which gives the familiar Windows applications environment and a strong gaming capability to Zune.

Having OS X as the operating system and Safari browser for web access is definitely less attractive for a phone than say a Symbian or a Windows OS.

3. Apple has a fine retail legacy in selling iPods, but selling and thrashing out subsidized bundled deals with competing telecom network operators in different countries across the world may be a lot more challenging than that.

4. The 4 and 8 GB HDD for a phone as refined as iPhone clearly means a less memory option for so many applications and the ease of use that iPod typically provides. Then there is video, Internet, many other phone apps... And in a year's time, this memory will seem even less so.

5. The closed-from-the-back a la iPod, iPhone has a non-removable battery, not preferred by many.

6. With a growing number of 3.5G HSDPA networks globally which offer download speeds of up to 1.5 MBPS (with 3.6 MBPS, 7.2 MBPS and 14.4 MBPS download speeds going forward), iPhone may not be able to provide the experience of good video downloads.

7. Therefore there won’t be video calls either, at least not in the first generation of iPhones.

8. It has a 2 megapixel camera which is ok, but it is not enough as many medium range phones already have it these days.

9. Lack of enterprise apps and Apple's lack of expertise as well as lack of tie-ups on this front (unlike a Microsoft or Blackberry) is a disadvantage. Yahoo is not exactly the last word in Push Mail, Blackberry is! It would have been a terrific move on the part of Apple to get Blackberry Connect on its side as Microsoft and Blackberry are sworn enemies.

10. No IP telephony, which is where the world is moving to, as also proven by the recent tie-up between Nokia and Skype.

11. Only GSM version as of now. Apple does not have a CDMA variant.

12. No Mobile TV or FM

Then what makes iPhone so hot?

1. The iPod legacy and branding goodwill will fetch iPhone many readymade customers. Over the last six years, iPod has developed a strong loyalty which will definetely pay for iPhone as well.


2. Apple is also betting on iPhone's hot design and technical finesse. As pointed by analysts, iPod revolutionized the MP3 market not because it was the first (it wasn't) but because it was so easy to use.

3. A revolutionary and terrific user interface. The device has a 3.5 inch screen optimized for playing movies and television shows, but also will be a full-featured mobile phone, allowing users to switch easily between answering calls and listening to music or watching video.

4. A very cool touch screen. Unlike the other devices, which include keyboards and dedicated buttons, the iPhone is built around a touch screen and virtual buttons that change depending on the application. The phone uses a patented keyboard tech called Multi-touch.

5. Aggressive pricing. Though it may seem a bit on the higher side to some, but when compared to phones in the same genre, iPhone offers better bang for the buck, especially with so much ported on to it.

6. A damn good battery life. The battery life of the phone will allow five hours of talk time, video and browsing, and 16 hours of audio playback.

7. It has Visual Voicemail that lets users look at a listing of their voicemails, decide which messages to listen to, then go directly to those messages without listening to the prior messages. This revolutionary service also enables users to immediately randomly access those messages that interest them most.

9. Over-the-air iTunes downloads. iPhone lets users enjoy all their iPod content, including music, audio books, audio podcasts, video podcasts, music videos, television shows, and movies. It syncs content from a user's iTunes library on his/her PC or Mac, and can play any music or video content they have purchased from the online iTunes store.

10. iPhone is a quad-band GSM phone that features EDGE and Wi-Fi wireless technologies for data networking through. iPhone will also work with most industry standard web mails based on IMAP and POP servers, support Microsoft Exchange, Apple .Mac Mail, AOL Mail, Google Gmail, and most ISP mail services.

11. t employs advanced built-in sensors - an accelerometer, a proximity sensor, and an ambient light sensor - that automatically enhance the user experience and extends battery life. Its built-in accelerometer detects when the user has rotated the device from portrait to landscape, then automatically changes the contents of the display accordingly, with users immediately seeing the entire width of a Web page, or a photo in its proper landscape aspect ratio.

12. Less than half-an-inch slimmer than every other phone in the market including those from Samsung and Motorola.