Ordinary Gweilo

The reaction to the iPhone anouncement has been predictable, I suppose.  It must have been the most widely-reported "technology" story of the last several months, and generally the coverage has been very positive, though some have been more sceptical – The Guardian suggested that it’s not as clever as Steve thinks: 

Imagine you are on the television programme University Challenge. Your starter for 10: identify which mobile has these specifications. Don’t press the button until you are sure. Ready? Weight: 135 grams. Camera size: 2 megapixels. Data storage: 4GB to 8GB. Talktime: up to five hours. Connectivity: Wi-Fi and quad-band. Screen size: 3.5 inches; multi-touchscreen. At this point some bright spark presses the button ahead of you to say it is the KE850 variant of LG’s Chocolate phone.

That’s a new phone, of course, but I have had a number of Treos with touchscreens – and although they come with the stylus that Steve Jobs derided, I can do most things without using it.  Of course the screen is smaller, and it has a tiny keyboard rather than the "virtual keyboard" on the iPhone, but my (5 year old?) Samsung Nexio Wireless Hand PC has one of those (and Wi-Fi), as do countless other devices.  So nothing very new then.

Well, OK, I have to concede that none of these smartphones allow you to grab an icon with your fingers, squeeze it and make it smaller.  I really don’t know how I’ve managed without particular feature… 

The other problem with so-called smartphones is that they aren’t all that smart, and end up being frustrating to use.  Can Apple solve that problem?  Most of the hype is based on the hope that they can, and that the iPhone will be as user-friendly as the iPod, but that’s a lot to ask considering that this is going to be a much more complex device. 

Time had a fairly extensive article (The Apple Of Your Ear) with photos showing how the iPhone will look (pretty good, I have to admit).  They also had a (rather uncritical) piece about how it was developed, but then I suppose Apple weren’t going to give them the first look at the product if they were going to rip it apart: 

The iPhone started out the way a lot of cool things do: as something completely different. A few years ago, Steve Jobs noticed how many development dollars were being spent–particularly in the greater Seattle metropolitan area–on what are called tablet PCs: flat portable computers that work with a touch screen instead of a mouse and keyboard. Jobs, being Jobs, was curious. He had some Apple engineers noodle around with a touch screen. When they showed him what they came up with, he got excited.

So excited he forgot all about tablet computers. He had bigger game to hunt.

[…] Jonathan Ive, Apple’s head of design–the Englishman who shaped the iMac and the iPod–squashed the case to less than half an inch thick and widened it to what looks like a bar of expensive chocolate wrapped in aluminum and stainless steel. The iPhone is a typical piece of Ive design: an austere, abstract, Platonic-looking form that somehow also manages to feel warm and organic and ergonomic.

Even The Economist seemed to get a bit carried away, but at least they didn’t describe the iPhone as "cool". 

Along with more than 200 other patents, this technology should put the iPhone “five years ahead” of its rivals, reckons Mr Jobs. This claim is hard to judge. The iPhone is not the only phone that can switch automatically between a short-range Wi-Fi connection and a mobile-phone network, depending on which one it sniffs. But it is the only phone with a web browser (Apple’s Safari) that displays web pages in their full splendour. It is also the only phone that has “visual voicemail” to save users from the hassle of listening to all their messages before getting to the important ones—a joint innovation with Apple’s partner, Cingular, America’s largest mobile operator. And it is by far the best handset for photographs, music and videos.

I’m not convinced that this "iPod with a phone" approach makes sense.  It will never be as simple as an iPod, and the problem is that it could end up as just another variant on the smartphone, with all the frustration that can bring.  There’s also an inescapable conflict between what is possible if the device runs OS X and the wish to provide a simple, easy-to-use phone.  Will Apple allow third-party developers access to the phone and increase the risk of problems?  Or try to keep it simple but frustrate some of those who have drooled over the phone?  Maybe Palm and Blackberry are safe, at least for now.

A more revolutionary approach for Apple would be to offer a really simple phone add-on for the iPod.  Put them together and you would have an iPhone, but you could separate the two devices and use your phone without all the complications of a smartphone (but with limited functionality).  Maybe not so elegant, but possibly more practical. 

Will it be a success?  Apple are up against some formidable competitors who have a lot of experience in handset design and deep relationships with the service providers (from whom most people buy their phones). However, Steve Jobs would probably be satisfied with a fairly small share of the market, and there are surely enough Apple enthusiasts to achieve that, which means that it should force other handset manufacturers (and particularly Palm and Blackberry) to find ways to make their products easier to use.  Which has to be a good thing.