Competition

If you’re a gadget freak you secretly want an iPhone. And the Android powered HTC. And a Blackberry Bold. But since you’re here you probably already have an iPhone and the thought of signing another soul sucking contract just to use the latest bit of tech undoubtably brings shudders. Still, you’re interested, right? Go ahead, admit it, it’s okay.

So here’s the latest on Android: Stephen Wildstrom got his hands on one of the gadgets and found it to be overly thick, the keys uncomfortable and none of that cool pinch stuff you can do on an iPhone. .And there’s some network issues to be aware of. On the bright side it has cut and paste. Read his full take right here.

One interesting thing about the review. Towards the end Stephen just gives up on talking about the Android and starts raving about how great the Blackberry Bold is. For Google: Awkward…

If you’re reading this you’re probably not after a Blackberry Bold but maybe you have a friend or relative with a bad jones for the Blackberry. You need to spend a few moments consoling and explaining that the reason they can’t have a Blackberry Bold in the US is because your iPhone is eating up all the bandwidth available.

The problem arises because both devices rely on the 3G network and AT&T can barely handle the amount of volume generated by the iPhone so adding the Bold won’t be possible until AT&T can manage the data used by the iPhone. It turns out that one iPhone uses as much data as twenty blackberrys not because iPhone users are surfing or texting more but because Apple uses a scheme where the iPhone is constantly accessing the AT&T network whereas RIM routes things through the companies servers, saving AT&T from managing the network.

Those are the boring techie reasons but who cares about accuracy? Those wannabe Bold owners just want a shoulder to cry on, so be a good person and help them out.
Via: Globe and Mail

It must be iPhone killer day here on iPhonematters because it isn’t just HTC making some noise, it is also the Blackberry Storm. The Storm will be the first touchscreen Blackberry and looks a lot like the iPhone. Bonus points? You can only get it from Verizon.

Okay, so far we have:
Looks like an iPhone
Tied to a single carrier like an iPhone
Visual voicemail like an iPhone
Button free like an iPhone…
So it is pretty clearly an iPhone rip off. Which is fine, imitation sincerest form of flattery, competition is good etc.. The really cool thing is that we can calculate how long it takes to make a full fledged iPhone killer. First we’ll need to decide when Verizon and RIM decided they really wanted a complete iPhone killer. Forward thinking companies would have soiled themselves at MacWorld 07 but Verizon didn’t want anything to do with the iPhone back then. So a logical time seems to be June 2007 when people were canceling their Verizon contracts to hope on the iPhone bandwagon. Using that as the start date gives us a lead time of… more...

What can’t be beat even though its only a year old? If you said 50 kids that have just learned to walk (1 year olds) you not only have some mental defect you’re also wrong. the answer is, of course, the iPhone. Yes, companies have had 15 months to copy the iPhone (or make something better) and all they’ve come up with is phones that look like the iPhone.

What do competitors hate about the iPhone? Freaking everything. From the marketing to the well, let Matt Hamblem tell you:

At this week’s CTIA show here, where hundreds of companies that build devices and applications or offer network services are convening, corporate leaders keep pointing out iPhone weaknesses—from networks issues to lesser video capabilities. But they also have to keep answering why their devices can’t be as special as the iPhone or its touch interface, slew of applications and functions.

Yep Matt is at this week’s CTIA show and is guaging the mood of the various vendors in attendance. There are surprisingly frank admissions from competitors throughout Matt’s article so be sure to read it.
Link: more...

RIM the maker of the obviously iPhone inspired Blackberry Bold (did they use a photocopier or tracing paper?) has decided that copying the iPhone isn’t going to cut it. It is time to do something, um, bold? Eschewing the form factor found in most smartphones, the much loved lozenge shape, Blackberry is trying something new.

The something new? A clamshell blackberry, a flip phone with all the Blackberry goodness people have come to expect. What does this mean for the iPhone? Are there people out there who secretly crave a flip phone version of the Blackberry so badly that they will ditch the iPhone for the fun of casually flipping their Blackberry open? Will i prove popular enough so that Apple will be forced to do a flip phone iPhone? Yeah sure, and the iPhone will get buttons too.
via Fortune

According to AdMob the iPhone is the world’s fastest growing device. Apparently they measure this by number of requests from the iPhone on the internet (measuring this is easy to do, but also easy to spoof). More interesting than the iPhone is some other stats found in the article. Smart phones accounted for 25.8% of worldwide traffic (hard to believe), and that the iPhone in conjunction with the other top five smart phones accounted for 12.9% of all US traffic (call me skeptical).

One supposes it is in AdMob’s interest to pump the numbers up to eleven for mobile browsing since the company is devoted to monetizing mobile advertising so the stats aren’t too surprising. And if they did reach the numbers with some wonky math just think of it as a glimpse into the future.
via:TMCnet.com

James Stoup has an excellent piece up over at our sister site Apple Matters extolling the virtues of the App store. Heck, he likes it so much he’d like to see it as part of OS X. But it isn’t all blue skies and cotton tailed bunnies hopping through the meadows, James notes that Google’s android store is on the horizon and that it will likely provide some real competition for the App store.

Check it out!

Michael Dell recently said that some day, in the future, sometime later, definitely not anytime soon Dell may well make something that competes withe the iPhone:
“I think you will see us with small screen devices” Spoke Michael Dell
When asked specifically about smartphones like the iPhone the Right Honorable Mr. Dell said:
“You’ll see us with smaller and smaller devices that have capabilities of the devices you are referring to. Not in the near-term”

Dell’s success at copying small devices made by Apple hasn’t been the best, witness the much hyped then dropped Dell DJ. Recently Dell announced they were coming out with another .mp3 playerc player which will also fail miserably.

iPhone Matters did, in fact, break into Dell research headquarters and were able to snag this shot of the as yet unnamed Dell device:

via Reuters

The dominant Application for skinning and changing even the most minute of the iPhone’s interface is the very aptly named “Customize.app” and while it’s the only good thing available, the folks behind Unsanity are aiming to introduce their sorely missed skills to the iPhone.

You might recall the massive crap storm that brewed when users found that the program Application Enhancer which interferes with the OS on a very deep level to change many aspects of the interface caused problems when users tried to install Leopard. While the problem was solved they’ve decided to apply their expertise (and I use this term lightly since I have yet to see any major GUI improvements from them, only from the community) to the iPhone in perhaps the most horrid way possible. And by horrid I mean on the levels of the school bully taking your lunch money except he pretends to be Jason Statham.

The proposition is $20 for six months to use an Application that lets you set your Springboard wallpaper to N-Sync’s lead singer. No, don’t write a comment wailing at me for not supporting the development community and that your… more...

A group of speakers consisting purely of industry leader at the Mobile World Congress could not agree on why the iPhone was so popular amongst consumers. While we could flat out tell you it’s the interface that makes it so damn attractive, it apparently flew over most of their heads.

Adobe on the other hand was the only one to acknowledge that Apple hit a home run with the iPhone while others passed it off as a great time waster. Mike Yonker made a great point as to why the is iPhone is popular amongst consumers: users can get the content they want faster, The iTunes store and YouTube make it that much easier.

Via: iPhone Alley