The iPhone will be the best cell phone of all-time

While watching Apple's announcement today about the future of the iPhone and its SDK, I was shocked. As a person who frequently bemoans the issues and crappiness of tech, I was pleasantly surprised by how thorough and downright impressive Apple's presentation was.

From the very beginning where it spoke about the future of its enterprise integration to the end where Jobs allowed a venture capitalist to come on stage and offer a whopping $100 million to developers, the spectacle wasn't comprised of the illusions of grandeur that had marked the company's previous presentations, but showed a side of Apple that for once, conceded that it had made mistakes and was ready and willing to fix them.

And by admitting its failures and fixing them in a way that no one expected, Apple redeemed itself and has positioned its phone to become the best cell phone ever made. Of course, we can't crown it that until June.

When you create a list of all the complaints you have about the iPhone, surely business functionality and the ability to add applications to the device sit near the top. Of course, at the top of my list is 3G and although the company failed to address that, it will be coming relatively soon and I can squeak by without it for the time being.

For most of the business-types in the world, Apple's announcement that it would include push contacts, a global address list, Cisco IPsec VPN, authentication, enterprise class WiFi (WPA2 / 802.1x), security policies, enterprise configuration tools, and remote wipe was a dream come true. After years of using a BlackBerry to get the job done, company executives all over the world now have an excuse to buy an iPhone.

And while that may be important to some, it's the ability to do practically anything on your iPhone this coming June that will have the most important impact on the popularity of the device.

For the first time, we will finally be able to (legitimately) add applications to the iPhone that should help increase productivity and usefulness. And although the showings today were relatively crude (even though Spore looked great), the possibilities are endless.

Instead of being inundated with bloated software from a company who thinks we want another crappy mobile app that we'll pay too much money for, the iPhone's App Store may finally afford us the opportunity to enjoy free applications made by innovators across the globe who made a program for themselves. In essence, a grassroots campaign of developers is starting to bud and it's the rest of us who will sit back and enjoy the ride.

Will there still be a fair share of expensive software with bloated code? Of course. But for the first time, we have an even playing field and independent developers and world-class software companies will be vying for the same market and I just don't see how that's bad.

And in case you were wondering -- I don't see paid-programs lasting very long. Why? Because for every paid-program, ten free packages will crop up that perform the same exact task and probably do it better; it's the beauty of the open-source community.

If nothing else, Apple on Thursday announced what amounts to one of the most important developments in the iPhone story. Instead of being a fancy device with a phone, the iPhone will soon be an all-in-one device that will be one of the most important gadgets you own. And I, for one, am extremely excited about it.

Watch out, BlackBerry. Apple is coming on strong.

[jimmyjoe]

Remember Palm? You know, the must have device of 2004/5... the company that is now nearly defunct. That may well be the fate of Crackberry before too long as well. Give me a 3G iPhone with skads of memory and the capabilites listed today and I am sold. I'll finally have a phone that has more promise than my Palm 700p, with a real user interface, connectivity I've been dreaming of. Dare I say, the iPhone looks to be the future of mobile devices. As the demand increases and the prices continue to drop - who would pay for anything else, when an iPhone is the ultimate?

[imdylbert]

Something occurred to me as i was reading this article. There must have been a loud sound of grinding teeth and heads pounding against walls at AT&T with this announcement. They have to absolutely hate this pricing model, as do all of the other wireless carriers as well. Now, all of a sudden, instead of everyone getting screwed with $5 apps that expire in 6 months, there is flexible pricing on really powerful applications with no (to my knowledge) expiration date. I also have to wonder if Apple needed to wait a little while to gain some marketshare before they could go out and say "Yeah, we're going to allow you to put apps on your phone and we're going to be the gateway". Now they have the clout with twenty some odd percent or whatever it is whereas they didn't before. Now they can say "No, AT&T, we're not going to let you force them to buy ridiculously overpriced applications from you and only you."

[john55440]

"Of course, we can't crown it that until June."

Then save your Apple Fanboy Drivel until June. (grin)

[aztec92154]

- Will the iPhone become the Wii of the Cell Phone Gaming Platforms?
- Will it beat the Nokia Engage?

One thing is for sure, with both EA and Sega's support and more to follow, the iPhone will be a major player in the Cell Phone Platform Gaming arena.

Mat Lu from Engadget says that "Ethan Einhorn from Sega showed off a build of Super Monkey Ball, naturally also using tilt controls. What's interesting there is they actually underestimated what the iPhone could do, and ended up having to bring in another artist to upscale the art from what they had anticipated. Again, the take home message: the iPhone is a real platform for game development."

Will the iPhone be Apples trojan horse to get into the portable gaming market?

[aztec92154]

The largest celll phone game publisher (in terms of cell phone game sales) Gameloft has signed up with Apple. Lets see what they can do.

-"The iPhone gaming environment opens a new era in mobile gaming and is
exactly what we've been waiting for" said Michel Guillemot, President of
Gameloft.

SOURCE:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/03-10-2008/0004770401&EDATE=

[johnnysocko]

The best cell phone of all time.....perhaps to some if develpment stops today.

I personally think it's an ok device, but has flaws and is missing some pretty important features. I use touch screens at work for text input (typing, on a pc for running machinery, oh my god does it suck to type on), and my sis-in-law has an HTC Touch, typing an email or text on that thing is painful also. An iphone type of device with an improved method of text input would be a hell of a lot better.

So to the author, best of all time, you should reconsider, 'cause we can't foresee tomorrows devices today. And 15 years ago, when I purchased my first cellular phone, a Motorola brick with 12 L.E.D. display, we thought, "this is got to be the best thing for communication of all time" Yeah, right, I bought the first flip phone shortly thereafter, which was one-third the size. It goes on and on, and will continue to go on and on, probably ending when we all just use telepathy from our bionic cerebral cortex (of course an Apple product, probably in white to match our gray matter),

Before you declare a winner, let's determine a finish line, shall we.

[jrm125]

As long as it lacks business capabilities, it will never be as useful as a Blackberry.

Save the Mac Fanboyism...