[PityOnU]

Just the mere mention of the letter "i" makes the blood pressure of most Zune owners skyrocket; myself included. But even more annoying than the letter "i" attached to the beginning of every noun from "Pod" to "Poop", is when it is followed by the word "Phone".

Most people now recognize that the Apple iPhone is a great technological achievement. This also makes most people entirely incorrect. The most marvelous element of the iPhone is not its technology, but the marketing machine that blasted it into the heads of all 700+ million Americans just last year. In fact, most of the technology behind the iPhone was already in use.

For example, let us take one of the most hyped features of the iPhone: the ability to access and surf the internet. The iPhone was far from the first mobile device to be able to access the internet. Laptop owners will note the expansion cards sold at their local BestBuy's that allow them to access the internet through the cellular network. Such cards have been available for years now, and unlike the original iPhone, allowed users access to BROADBAND (read "3G") internet. Many, many phones also had access to the 3G network long before the iPhone (Verizon uses 3G for its "Get It Now" application), and many Windows CE based smart phones allowed the user to check email and surf the web long before 2007 (the Blackberry in 2002). It should also be noted that all of these phones and mobile devices carried a much lower price than that of the iPhone.

Another overly-hyped feature of the iPhone is its ability to play audio and video files. There are many, many devices on the world market today that can be classified as "portable media centers", including the Zune and the previously mentioned BlackBerry. And, unlike the iPhone, most media-playing phones on the market today allow for the addition of external memory cards through an expansion slot, a feature which can allow a user to have an almost infinite amount of storage space (assuming that they have enough memory cards). Previous media players also allowed for the viewing of more media formats than just the ones downloaded from the iTunes market.

Finally, a large selling factor behind the iPhone was its "Multi-Touch" input screen. This is, and continues to be, the most cutting edge technology involved with the iPhone. Although it does allow for the touch manipulation of elements on the screen, touching a certain spot on a 3.5" screen can prove to be difficult. The keyboard on the device is especially hard to master, including not only miniscule, virtual keys, but also an auto-spellchecking subroutine that can make a huge mess of strings of text. This of course is in addition to the fact that to control any part of the device, one must at the same time obscure most of the screen. Unfortunately, there is still no equally-ergonomic solution to physical buttons, which have the added plus of allowing one to txt or type while not looking directly at the keypad.

Now that we have examined most of what the iPhone can do, let us examine what it cannot do. For starters, after being advertised as a "smart phone", the iPhone does not provide the user with any sort of word-processing applications. It also does not provide any way to save any content downloaded through the internet directly to the phone (excluding Apple's iTunes marketplace). Also lacking on the iPhone scene is a way for app developers to create and distribute programs without having to pay any membership or distribution costs (it costs $100 to be able to distribute your iPhone application via the iTunes marketplace - which is the only way it can be easily distributed).

So, as you can hopefully now see, the iPhone is not the most technologically advanced smart phone in the world, it is the most widely known. As a business, Apple is not envied for its technology, but instead for its unstoppable marketing machine. If nothing else, I hope that after reading this, people will think more about a product than just blindly parroting what is said in the commercial associated with it.



Take that iSheep.

[Shadoblak]

BUT MY JEEZUS PHONE CAN DU ANYTHING!!!!!


No honestly, I don't like fingerprints on my screen and if someone else needs to use my phone I DEFINITELY don't want some fingers previously visiting parts unknown all over my screen.....Wtf is wrong with a stylus and buttons?? Are people THAT stupid? Do they really need to amuse themselves by making finger painting motions on a largely uninspired device???
And you pay THEM so they can have apps bragging rights?? Bull!

[Zunesi]

I haven't read the full essay yet but Blackberry's FTW!!!
I've used both the old iPhone and the 3G and to be honest the internet sucked with them both ewven though both times they were I used the wi-fi which is faster than the mobile internet,
Long story short the iPhone is nice like a novelty item but in this day and age when people want their important electronics to do a lot of things and be very functional then it just doesn't stand up to other phones that are on the market

[Fez]

Wow pity.
That is just perfect.
Although you forgot to mention the lack of video recording abilities and the fact that users cant browse their files on the device through a file explorer annnd how you cant send the pictures you take via email.(Not too sure about sending one though.)

[Zunesi]

I'm pretty sure you can't send pictures either, it doesn't have MMS I think so basically Apple are trying to not only make you a loner in their mp3s (iPod, not sharing etc etc) but it also makes you even more anti social with a device that's supposed to be all about sharing and messaging!?

[Fez]

It also makes you an iApple iDickhead.