Why the iPhone trumps the others
July 17th, 2009 by I am boon
I’ve been toying around with a 2G iphone I loaned from my boss for two weeks now. I loaded it with an O2 PAYG sim, and I like that I only pay £10 a month for access, and they give me 300 texts each time I top up £10. That being said, the O2 signal is really patchy where I live, so I’m still holding onto my w810i for voice calls.
The real selling points of the iphone, to me, are about getting stuff done involving the web. For one, it handles email fairly well. Granted I haven’t used a blackberry, but you’re talking about someone who’s been on candybar since forever and used not to subscribe for data services.
I could’ve easily opted for a web-enabled phone, but I really hate clunky applications on phones. The iphone does have limitations being a mobile device (battery life, limited screen real estate, slow connection, etc.), but it has set a standard for applications, so in fact, most of the apps don’t feel like they’re very random - unlike the large variety of Java apps out there in the market.
With mobile - I feel this is important, because so many J2ME apps try to do so many things, that it ends up being too chaotic. I avoid installing J2ME apps because I just don’t know which one to trust. So far, I’ve been quite happy running Google mobile apps on my W810i, but I seriously avoid anything else. All that changed with the iPhone as I found myself gratuitiously downloading one app after another (free ones, of course).
The point about mobile apps isn’t the fact that you needed to make it available - it’s the fact that you need to make it consistently usable. And I think a lot of mobile companies don’t understand this. People don’t have the time or the luxury to “figure out” how apps work on their mobiles - whether it’s a Java-enabled phone or a WAP-site.
In Malaysia, Maxis has started offering iPhone services - but without unlimited data plans. This is seriously going to stop people from adopting the iPhone as their primary mobile device.
Telecom companies still don’t get it. I used to work for a few of them. They’re constantly talking about the next biggest thing, and they think they know what people want on their phones, but they have absolutely no clue whatsoever. Most of these executives transition between plush office spaces, hotels and corporate boardrooms - their ‘users’ are represented by spreadsheets, powerpoint slides, and market research blips.
Most of the action takes place out on the streets, and that’s where the iphone shines.