Why does the iPhone get so much hype when more capable devices are already available?

The hottest topic of last week was obviously the Apple iPhone. At first I was quite excited about the device and, as always, Apple does a good job of hyping up a product. However, after reading more on the iPhone details, including David Pogue's Ultimate iPhone FAQ part 1 and part 2 we can see that the iPhone really is not designed for the business user even though the pricing is up in the enterprise range. It may be designed for the consumer, but even then there are existing devices that consumers should take a look at too before succumbing to the Apple hype. We thought it would be a good idea to post some facts on a few other high end devices priced over US$450 that compete well with the iPhone and actually work much better for the business user. So let's take a quick look at the Apple iPhone, Nokia N95, and Cingular 8525 (HTC Hermes variant).
Apple iPhone: Most of us gadget fans were initially hit by the shock-and-awe of the Jobs keynote announcing the Apple iPhone, but after the dust settled out and we started diving into the specs, price, and functionality we saw that Apple does a good job of putting a new face on existing technology and functionality. Granted, there is some cool new stuff like the multi-touch display panel, but Apple also made some apparent trade-offs that many users may not be willing to compromise on. According to information released by Apple, the iPhone will not sync to Outlook or allow you to sync with other 3rd party PIM applications, will not allow you to view or edit Office documents, may not work as a modem for a MacBook or laptop, only responds to skin touch with no fingernail or stylus response, can only be used with Cingular (maybe for as long as 2 years), has a closed Mac OS X variant operating system, has no removable battery, has no memory expansion slot, has no GPS, and currently has no voice dialing capability. I think the 8GB is a bit too limiting as well since videos you purchase from iTunes can take over 1GB of memory themselves and many people have music collections much larger than this. While the device looks beautiful in photos and images, if they want it to be a phone first it needs to have physical keys. Microsoft has had touch screen phones for several years and while they are powerful and functional for people that want a phone first the touch screen just doesn't cut it. If Apple wants the iPhone to be a multimedia device then it really needs more memory and a removable battery would be nice as well.



Nokia N95: The N95 release is imminent and the device has been shown at various trade shows since October. I have had opportunities to play with the device for a total of about 20 minutes at the Nokia Open Studio event and CES. The Nokia N95 sports 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, dual mode sliding display, bright 2.6 inch QVGA display, WiFi, Bluetooth (including A2DP), HSDPA radio, integrated GPS radio, FM radio, microSD card slot, 150MB internal memory, TV-out functionality, and 3.5mm audio jack. The N95 runs Symbian 9.2 with S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 and there are is a huge collection of 3rd party and integrated applications that allow you to sync with Exchange and a number of other server clients, create, view, and edit Office documents, sync to Calendar, Contacts, and more via USB to a PC or Mac, and much more. The browser in the S60 3rd Edition is actually based on Apple's own Safari open source technology and blows every other mobile web browser out of the water with its visual history, integrated RSS aggregator, and full website support that doesn't strip out or limit your viewable content while making navigation and viewing a pleasure. The dual slider on the N95 reveals either multimedia buttons or a phone keypad so you can quickly transform the device from a phone to a media player. The Nokia N95 is much more powerful than the Apple iPhone and could be made even better with 4GB or 8GB of flash memory like the Nokia N91 devices.

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