I’m probably not the first to blog about the Apple iPhone (or whatever it’s going to be called due to Cisco owning the brand name), but I’m going to do this nevertheless.

I’m old enough to remember working with the Mac (the Mac - the very first one) and recalling what a joy it was compared to the other kit in the university’s computer lab (some HP Basic PC’s and a stack of IBM’s and early clones). The Mac made a difference, and the Mac pointed the way for the rest of the industry.

The iPhone, from what I’ve seen, marks the same point in time for smartphones. I’m always wondering about people trying to do stuff on their mostly WinCE smartphones - it’s clumsy, they keep losing their pens, and it is clear that the whole UI is a copycat of something that was originally built for another system. It looks like the team behind the iPhone have basically ignored current smartphone history, went back to the drawing board, and thought up something thight might actually be pleasant to use.

I think designers at Nokia, Sony/Ericsson, Siemens, Samsung haven’t slept well last night. Whether the iPhone becomes a commercial success or not, it has thrown down the gauntlet. “This is how you should design a smartphone. Now get and do a decent job for a chance.” Just like in the ’80s with the Mac (I still vividly remember the superbowl commercial)…

In the meantime, I’m craving for one, it’ll be a looong wait until non-locked versions become available for grey import (and yes, I have a subscription with a provider that offers GPRS/EDGE ).

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 1:25 pm and is filed under In the news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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