Why Apple is sweet still

The touch screen is not for Apple and LG alone. Nokia has started shipping the Internet Tablet N800. With a Wide VGA touch screen display. With full browser. With music and video players. But Nokia missed what Nokia means. This device is not a phone. This is just an internet device plus a media player. What it misses compared to iPhone
- no iPOD. Well, media player is not iPOD. iPOD is iPOD and only iPOD
- no phone. Though Nokia
- even lesser talk time than iPhone! Well, guys say - wait for the real one. The N95. Things should be better

Now what it fares better is the good screen resolution. A good WVGA of 800x480! Only Steve Jobs mocking talk has a better resolution than this. iPhone chucks on 320x480.

iPhone is not the best phone. Its not the best camera on phone. Nokia N93 has a VGA video camera. And a player too. Its not the only full internet ones. Many others have. Its not the only touch screen. N800 has. LG will have soon. Its not the only media player. N93i does better. But its the only iPOD. And its probably the best all rounder?

Anyway the biggest success for Apple is the talks it has generated. Something which N93 or N800 could not.

Apple is not alone

The touchscreen keypad for a phone is probably the first for the UI experts at Apple. But not the only one for a long time. The Koreans are coming up. Look at LG-KE850. That sounds good for Apple. The industry is picking up its new "standard"

For me, I really like the single screen multi-function idea, but not the touch screen. Apple click-wheel would have been there too?

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??