Revolutionary Phone?

I’m sure you must have heard about the iPhone by Apple.  Some of you might be interested in the phone that is said to change the telecoms industry.  But is the iPhone truely revolutionary or just plain hype?

The one thing I will have to give Apple is the hype and media frenzy this phone has established.  I even have to admit that it looks good, a stylish phone.  But style or hype doesn’t give you good reception, or make your phone work wonders.  Apple has pushed the phone as iPod meets phone, while in fact there has been several phones that play MP3s including a previous phone based on iTunes & the iPod.  The advertisements also claim that it is a new way of mobile internet, though Symbian or Windows Mobile has been providing excellent internet smartphones for years. 

The only thing new about the iPhone is that it has no buttons and is the first phone to work off the OS X operating system.  It is entirely touchscreen based with no real buttons, which Apple claims as positive thing.  The keaboard is entirely on this screen and one must rely on this screen to accurately interpret your typing and dialing.

So what are the revolutionary features of this phone?  I don’t find any and perhaps am more excited about future releases (or released phones) from Nokia or HTC which use Symbian and Windows Mobile respectively.  A Nokia with integrated camera capable of recording DVD Quality Video yet still a great phone, MP3 player, and smartphone.  A HTC device with a full slide out keaboard with intergrated GPS, MP3 Player, and 3G Internet Speeds (instead of slow EDGE speeds on the iPhone).   Perhaps we should even look further at the big flaws of the iPhone compared to most other phones on the market:

• No Realtones or MP3 Ringtones
• No Cut or Copy and Paste
• No Flash or Java (To view most embedded videos on the internet)
• No Picture Messaging (MMS)
• No Video Recording despite having a 2MP Camera
• No Voice Activated Dialing
• No Removable Battery
• No Addon Memory

Perhaps if the latest SonyEricsson would have had as much coverage and hype people would also line the block to buy one, but are people really knowing what they are getting.  There are a host of better phones out there.  I remember the first Windows Mobile smartphone, the Orange SPV (Manufactured by HTC).  It would record video, did decent MMS (being new technology back in 2002), and even had voice activated dialing.  How can a phone be marked as revolutionary when it lacks the progress that so many of us use.  Is a touchscreen only device the future?  I doubt it.  The iPhone truely is an overhyped device that I doubt will live upto the expectations of being revolutionary.  For me I’ll stick to a phone that does so much more for less, and an open platform with a host of expansion options.