Job well done or Magic Jobs ?

Finally the iPhone is out. The industry has been speculating this. Papparazzis has been behind it - tracking some order that went to a Chinese company and so on. Jobs has raised the curtain now - not fully yet, though. Its iPhone finally. A new device that you can call a phone. Or an iPod. Or a PDA. Or an internet device. Or everything in one.

The Apple touch is there. Of course yes. Like the small device that caters multiple things. Nothing new. Theres Sony Mylo which is a PDA with WLAN. Theres Sharp WZero3 which is a phone with PDA with Winmobile. Though only for Japan. Then theres Nokia devices that are rugged and heavy too. All for the geeks. No one had targeted a common man. Or an apple fan. This is where Apple wants to sell. To the apple fan. Who does not want to stop biting the apple, does not want to stop listening to itunes. Still want to make a phone call. Want to look into the web. No office automation. No word, excel and outlook. Let blackberry handle that. Period.

Whats new here? Of course the Apple invention continous. The UI. First time its a phone with touch screen keypad. Apple fans will love that. Industry will study it and try to copy it. Like the Mac UI, like the iPod wheel. This is a new concept for the phone world. Time to prove how the market responds. And how robust the technology will be one year down the line. Hopefully you dont have to jump on the screen icons like you are forced to on the bank ATMs. While phone majors are trying the best of mechanical engg to squeeze in a QWERTY keyboard, Apple reuses the 3.5 in screen to come up with a keyboard when in phone mode. Though I still worry how this will be received, Jobs magic is not always as easy as the Gates one to understand.

Too many devices kill a lot of power on iPhone. The intel processor runs OSX. Hmmmm.... Neither OS-X nor Intel is supposed to be running on a battery-minded device. So it is. A 5 hour talk time and 16 hour music time max. No replacable battery. You need to put the phone or a charger everyday for sure. Even the Samsung video accelerator is new. Thats what killed the erstwhile PortalPlayer who thought Apple a day keeps revenues ever. Gone Apple and gone the company too. Anyway battery life is bad on iPhone.. at the very best.

Other features are mixed. The sensor detection to switch video into portrait and landscape modes as the user holds the phone, sorry, iPod, is probably a good feature. But the face detection - when you get the iPhone close to your face it switched into phone mode - is probably an overkill. While iPoders uses the white earphone, normal phone users are on BT headsets. Why the hell I have to remove the headset and then take the phone close to my face? I would call it an unwanted feature adding on the device cost.

There is something for the Apple fans also to feel sad. No 3G on it. But why. 3G is not a big market and for iPod users, its still smaller. You definitely do not appreciate a $100 extra bill for an iPhone3G with 2 hour talk time. Do you? Probably this is a valid setback for the Japanese Apple fan. They cannot talk on this iPhone. Probably thats the next stop for Apple. A 3G phone with HSDPA where iTunes can be downloaded over the air. No USB. No PC.

Remember the iMac? Jobs defined it as a machine that people can use to connect to the internet. Thats it. No floppy. No printer connectors. Only USB. Many frowned. USB is yet to mature. Not many devices available. Yet iMac survived. Nay, it succeeded. USB peripherals followed. This is now a new step. Let us wait and watch. But by the time it reaches half of the world, it will be two years. The concepts would have either won or dead by that time. People in India will not have to take a risk. Prices will be down and direction will be clear by that time.

Anyway its phone companies taking their bite on Apple now. Sore or Sweet??