iPhone – All hype gadget or true smart phone contender

The iPhone is about to hit the AT&T shelves, but will Apple rely on hype and the ‘cool factor’ to market its phone or can it stand up to rivals Nokia, Blackberry, Samsung and Palm in the competitive mobile phone market?
The iPhone is tipped to be the hottest gadget this year. Its unique design and touch screen features are sure to turn heads, but will it be able to stand its own against rivals like the Nokia N95 and the Samsung Blackjack?
Apple recently revealed that it has boosted the iPhone’s battery time and claims that it now provides nearly double the talk time of Smartphone rivals Nokia N95, Samsung Blackjack, Blackberry Curve 8300 and the Palm Treo 750.
It further enhanced the iPhone by introducing a glass display surface, improving on their previous plastic surface which most other phones are using. This is said to enhance the visual quality of the iPhone and will protect against scratches.
Features
The iPhone can be seen as a full featured multimedia device, with the ability to play music, make and receive calls, surf the web, play videos or stream them from Youtube, visually display voice messages and view HTML emails.
Apple further claims that the iPhone will work equally well with a Mac or Windows computer, similar to their very popular iPod music players.
These features are however not enough to impress smart phone fanatics. When compared to Nokia’s N95 the iPhone fades in comparison.
The N95 may not have Apple’s innovative touch-screen technology, but apart from the usual smart phone features it sports a full featured GPS system, a very good quality screen, a 5 M pixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, a video camera, a MP3 player and hot swappable memory expansion.
The N95 also dominates the iPhone in the connectivity department with Bluetooth, WiFi and 3G-HSDPA support. The lack of true mobile broadband connectivity in the iPhone may be something which broadband enthusiasts see as a serious flaw in Apple’s latest gadget. The iPhone supports WiFi and EDGE connectivity, but does not have 3G-HSDPA support like many of its rivals.
Cool factor
Manufacturers like Nokia, Samsung and Blackberry have a massive head start on Apple in the smart phone department, but the iPhone has one major advantage working in its favour: the cool factor.
There has not been as much hype surrounding any mobile phone in history, and it is certain to be an essential accessory for many fashion conscious individuals worldwide.
Apple will be able to cash in on the strength of its brands, and CEO Steve Jobs’ predictions of selling 10 million phones in 2008 may not be too ambitious. Many telecoms experts see Jobs’ prediction as realistic, and recent research by M:Metrics suggests 19-Million US and 7-Million UK cellular consumers are willing to pay between $ 499 and $ 599 to get their hands on this new ‘gadget phone’.
The acid test for the iPhone will most likely be the usability of its touch screen technology and how well its services are supported.
There is still uncertainty as to whether the iPhone’s touch-typing will be a suitable replacement for a traditional physical keypad, and although Jobs claims that it will be a breeze to use the new innovative touch technology only time will tell whether it does what it promises.
Support of the iPhone, whether in the form of standard Windows PC integration, corporate email services or writing new programs for the Apple device may prove to be a vital element of the success of the device. Unless it is well supported it may harm the uptake of the device as a true smart phone replacement.
Despite all the concerns and uncertainty one thing is certain: the hype surrounding the iPhone will result in long queues on Friday when people can finally get their hands on this long awaited cellular phone.