iPhone news

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the revolutionary phone of the century on January 9, 2007, at the MacWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, prompting the rivals to crop up with claims that the model is not so ‘revolutionary’. According to them, many of the features that Apple claim as innovative are already popular in the cellular market.

According to a senior vice president at Samsung Electronics, North America, “Apple is jumping into the party where everyone else is”. Samsung’s new model, SGH-E890 that arrived the market in January 2007, offers many features of Apple iPhone, including the touch-screen facility.

According to the rivals of Apple, the concept that Apple sells through iPhone can be viewed purely as a business gimmick. Wireless communication enhanced by Bluetooth has become a common feature in most of the cellular phones. In this scenario, Apple iPhone that works only through Cingular Wireless will force the user to think twice before opting for it. According to the industry analysts, the iPod feature of the iPhone may attract the enthusiastic customers towards it; yet the sensibility of owning a cell phone in place of an iPod for an amount more than $500 will be a concern for any customer.

Apple, however, is confident about its multifunctional sleek gadget and expects a revolutionary entry in the market by June 2007. As it can be sensed from the cellular phone market, the entry of multipurpose phones always creates a wave of curiosity among the customers to acquire it. The iPhone that can be categorized as one of the smartest phones may not lag behind in the race. It has got many advanced data processing and wireless communication features including the e-mail and web access that makes it stand out in the crowd. It is the triple power of the Apple iPhone - the phone, Internet, and the iPod – that prompts the rivals to come up with more innovative ideas in order to survive in the market.

Nokia Corp. Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo welcomed iPhone’s entry to the market saying that the multipurpose devices like the iPhone are good for the industry. Samsung too is wary about the competition which iPhone throws to the mid-to-high-end category of Samsung phones with its cutting-edge design and reasonable price. Padmasree Warrior, chief technology officer at Motorola Inc., world’s No. 2 handset maker, described the iPhone a “compelling concept” admiring Apple’s creativity. However she did not forget to mention that there is nothing revolutionary about the iPhone concept.

IPhone’s price may be a concern for some while the lack of a traditional keyboard may be concern for others. Also, Apple’s partnership with Cingular Wireless may be another concern for the customers because of its slower 2.5G data network.

Criticism serves as the best tool to improvement. One can expect that Apple iPhone will be able to overcome the shortcomings of its technology or design by making necessary improvements and turn up successful in the new era of mobiles.

As soon as the iPhone was launched, a lot of questions were cropped up on the adaptability of the new phone in the existing conditions. One confounding question among these was the availability of third party applications in it.

There is a widespread speculation that Apple iPhone is a first-party mobile phone, and Apple’s association with Cingular Wireless for data transfer restricts the user to follow their routes strictly ruling out all the possibilities of customizing the phone.

Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple Inc., answered positively to the worrying question of the users and also justified the ‘closeness’ of the phone saying that an open platform would muddle up the service provider’s network. He was alluding that Cingular Wireless does not allow the users to mess up their network by allowing third party software. Cingular is the exclusive U.S. carrier of Apple iPhone.

Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of worldwide iPod marketing, too had the same opinion. He confirmed the fact that there is little scope for third party applications in iPhone. However, he added that Apple is open for third parties for designing peripherals for the iPhone. Later, Greg did not forget to defend the iPhone saying that it is not totally ‘closed’ as it has already partnered with Yahoo! and Google for accessing their selected services. Yahoo! has offered free push e-mail service to iPhone users, and Google will provide the
Integrated Google Map facility to locate local businesses and other places.

Steve Jobs’ justification sounds puny; with the mobile networks flooding with the Windows applications and similar software, the ‘security concern’ of the iPhone may not sell easily. This GPRS/EDGE phone does not support 3G. With its other limitations such as the non-expandable memory, the scope for further modifications remains a fantasy for the enthusiastic iPhone lovers.

The use of Mac OS X software adds a ray of hope for developments. It seems that Apple is planning to develop more applications on OS X’s Mach kernel and the ARM processor architecture. Hope these developments happen in the near future eliminating the ambiguity over the efficiency of the compact version of OS X software used in the present model.

Another interesting claim from the Apple is that the iPhone is loaded with a lot of applications that can invite third party participation. For example, the applications such as the motion sensors, radio networking, and the computing features, etc., have lots of scope for third party applications, according to Apple. What seems more strange is the claim that most of these applications are too advanced to run in the present conditions.

Apple iPhone is yet to reach the market. Even though the Apple iPhone is priced reasonably, there is confusion among the industrialists on how the market will react to the cute gadget. It would be great if Apple could sort out the limitations of this new multipurpose mobile and reach to the proximity of the revolutionary users by adding the appropriate applications in it.