smartphones

Why I want the iPhone to succeed

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The new thing

I’m glad the iPhone’s is here – and I have very selfish reasons for wanting it to succeed. That’s because even without the cellular telephony, it looks like something I’ve been wanting to buy. But it’s also because after years of writing about smartphones, I’ve seen the established players become lazy and complacent, go down blind alleys, or standardize on horrible designs and feature sets. So the iPhone should focus minds wonderfully – it should raise the bar for everyone.

I’m also hoping a crushing wave of shame will overcome anyone who has a Blackberry, or one of its hideous clones from HP, Motorola, Nokia or Palm. Owning one of these is like volunteering for a lobotomy – then boasting about it afterwards.

I’m also hoping a crushing wave of shame will overcome anyone who has a Blackberry, or one of its hideous clones from HP, Motorola, Nokia or Palm. Owning one of these is like volunteering for a lobotomy – then boasting about it afterwards.

But common sense suggests it’s going to be a bumpy road for Apple, and it knows it. This isn’t a new experience: both the original Macintosh computer and the iPod received rave reviews on their debut but both were, a year of later, perceived to be failures. Both eventually recovered. Will Apple’s new PDA?

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Whatever happened to… the smartphone?

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At one time, the future of mobiles looked simple. The smartphone was a new kind of gadget that was subsuming the pager, the camera, the PDA, the Walkman, and almost every other iece of technology you could carry – and offering it in volume at an irresistible price. Often free. Over time, every phone would become a smartphone.

Expectations were sky high.

A few years ago an American business consultant and author published a very silly book called ‘Smart Mobs‘ – which even predicted that phone-toting nerds would be at the vanguard of social upheaval.

But something funny happened on the way to this digital nirvana. Perhaps the signs were there from the start: ‘Smart Mobs‘ couldn’t find a UK publisher. A website of the same name continues, however, apparently staffed by volunteers, and making its ghostly way across the web like a latter day Marie Celeste. Alas the site still has a category called “How To Recognize The Future When It Lands On You.”

And earlier this year the best known smartphone blogger hung up his pen.

So what went wrong?

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