iPhail

Wow, this grows quick.

Well my next rant is on the infamous JesusPhone... Yeah, thats right, the Apple iPhone.

I can understand the initial hype regarding this device. Apple was expanding to do something completely new (to them) and were trying to tap into the mobile communications industry. Can't blame them for that. But would this phone ever have sold if it weren't for the Apple branding? This blogger thinks no, and heres why...

1. The iPhone was marketed as a business communications tool. However, it lacks/lacked one very important ability: It couldn't work with Microsoft Exchange without some changes to the network that most IT departments would wet themselves laughing at, then show you the door. Bye bye business customers. This also leads me very nicely onto my next point...

2. The above problem could be very easily worked around if Apple had given people the opportunity to program new applications for it from the word go. But, they didn't. They left an otherwise reasonable device completely worthless (from the techie's point of view). Obviously, since version 2.0 of the OS, there is now the apps store, although most of the things I have seen on there a cheap, flashy gimmicks. There seem to be very few genuinely usefull applications among them. I may be wrong on this (as I don't have a iPhone), so feel free to correct me. This is a very bad negative on the iPhone's point of view when you consider the power offered by Microsoft's "Windows Mobile" platform and RIM's "Blackberry" devices.

3. What does Joe Bloggs look for in a phone? Usually its this: Phone (obviously), MP3 player (which, I have to admit, the iPhone covers very well), a camera and 3g. The iPhone lacked 3g and a decent camera. This was a MAJOR turn off for the average user. Even if they hardly ever used these features, they seem to be comforted by their presence.


I know I've skipped over a lot of things, but these are the bits that come to the forefront of my mind. So, thats the reason that without the Apple "cool factor", this overpriced device would have fallen flat on its face.