It doesn’t matter how easy it is to use a mobile camera (within reasonable reason), I think for example that 5MP will always score higher than 2MP. I mean, how easy/difficult can it be to push a button? I think it is even more difficult when you ain’t got a button to push! You just have to taste Nokia Carl Zeis highres camera But this is just one area

Also articles that hail iPhone tend to be abstract, for example:

> What the iPhone does is cuts the crap, and makes the rest really easy to use.

What “crap” does iPhone cut? cut and paste? MMS? ability to send SMS to multiple recipients? high res camera? video calling? a more open SDK? Java? Prepaid contract? send files via bluetooth? ability to play other popular media formats?

It’s more like “What the iPhone does is cutting features but tell those people who are asking those features missing that those features are just crappy anyway because iPhone doesnt have it”

> guess we can see that the iPhone is becoming a key player very quickly and it is worthy of some serious attention from both developers and consumers

Sure, but not because it is a revolutionary gadget … more because of their pushy marketing campaigns

Nokia keeps coming up in comparison to the iPhone. I believe the points I make in a previous comment still cover off my main thoughts on this topic.

You may also be interested in this article discussing Nokia and referring to the iPhone – it makes some interesting points:
http://www.telco2.net/blog/2007/10/nokias_dilemma_operator_friend.html

Quotes:

“The next, predictable, phase is upon us. The design focus moves away from features that exploit the underlying technology. Instead, the winning strategy is economy — not just of money, but also user time and effort. That means focus on what the user really wants. For example, lots of handsets might take great photos; the one that gets them into the hands of my friends with the least effort on my behalf is the winner.”

“As someone involved in conceiving the Nokia blogger relations program, I’ve been passed many N series handsets. They are all wonders of consumer electronics … But it’s not solving the real user crisis … More megapixels won’t make Nokia the king of the hill in future either. What the iPhone does is cuts the crap, and makes the rest really easy to use. Just go look at the email application. Are you with Google, Yahoo, AOL or MSN? Then just enter your username and password, we’ll do the rest. None of the above? Only then are you confronted with the POP3 and IMAP buzzwords.”

“Forget the idea of these being little multimedia computers … Nokia has to yet to build an acceptable telephone. And it’s taken Apple to come along, release a cruddy 2G phone with zero “computer” features (download an app? nope!), and fix one of the deep problems of standard telephony: the voicemail user interface.”

“Nokia has the best supply chain and engineering in the mobile handset space. But going forwards, Nokia needs to become a different beast: an original services manufacturer. It’s the services that the users value most, well above the budget for a sexy new handset. The iPhone has up-ended the economics of handset subsidies by tying a superior service into the device. Nokia must respond: it’s a life-or-death challenge.”

——-

I must state that I have never owned a Nokia – I have a Pocket PC Phone background. The Nokia has never interested me, so a lot of the comments I hear comparing the iPhone with what Nokia has had available for quite a while don’t really register. No matter what, I guess we can see that the iPhone is becoming a key player very quickly and it is worthy of some serious attention from both developers and consumers…

I think you need to look at what Nokia’s got, it’s the cure for iPhone spell

iPhone 3G is a good start, but what’s the point of 3G if you can’t do video calling? And Steve Job needs to just get over Objective-C and go with Java or JavaScript like language.

In regards to programmability, it is very far behind Symbian. Consider this, with Symbian:
- You’re allowed to develop whatever you wish, it is an open platform.
- You can program in Java, C++, Python, and more.
- The API allows you to access most (or all) of the phone’s features (few that I’ve tried myself: camera, bluetooth, Internet connection).

As the result, there are squillion apps for Symbian including a web server (apache): http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=167580

There might even be PAMP (Personal Apache MySQL PHP) for Symbian: http://www.symbian-freak.com/news/008/01/personal_apache_mysql_php_for_s60_3rd_ed.htm

> it is not their habit to just copy everyone

Well, check this out … http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/smartphones/openmoko-smartphone-did-they-have-a-time-machine-or-what-229243.php

Also a few have told me that a number of the features the iPhone brings to the table has actually been available in phones for a few years – for example GPS and touch screens. But multi-touch? Accelerometer? Assisted-GPS?

However, instead of getting into war over features, I think there is an important point here. The difference is that Apple is packaging all these features into one easy to use device, marketing it well, implementing the technology in everyday and very usable software, and making it all easily accessible to developers to take advantage of as well. The fact that people see what the iPhone can do and go “wow” proves my point – the average person has not seen many of these capabilities and features implemented before.

Basically it is not about the technology itself – it is about the overall package that Apple brings to the market.

I saw this video and thought of you and this post : http://youtube.com/watch?v=NZyYjQHcXEU