Measurement Matters

I do not dispute any of their 5 reasons. It is pretty and touchy-feely – I’ve played with one at the Apple Store in London. It has already stimulated other phone developers to make better phones. And yes it is a platform and is the first of many iPhones to come. Even putting all these attributes together does not make it the invention of the year. Apple invented nothing in the iPhone. It is an innovative combination of pre-existing technologies and good design. It’s a decent smartphone/media player with the best portable web browser yet produced and the Touch interface is just right for a handheld device. But typing an SMS or email on it is painful, the camera is two generations behind, it cannot take video and as a portable internet device, it is crippled by being stuck on GPRS. For me, as an audio/video player, even 16Gbyte is too small. Oh and one last thing - £899 minimum over 18 months just takes my breath away. As a proof-of-concept it’s dazzling, as a sensible real world device it’s just not ready.

So the iPhone wins my award as “Gadget of the Year”, and being logical my advice is that you should wait for version 2 and lower prices. ... so why do I feel the need to avoid the Apple Store, and O2 shops right now?