New iPhone Leaves Users Spoilt For Choice

Apple’s new iPhone 4 may have some smartphone-lovers watering at the mouth, but with Nokia’s N8 due out next month, plus a number of Android-based alternatives, the choice facing users is more difficult than ever.

Apple has in the space of just three years since the orginal iPhone was launched, become a major force in the mobile sector. Sure, there are larger handset vendors out there, but in that time Apple has managed to achieve what other mobile vendors have not. It has managed to capture the public’s imagination, as the furore surrounding the launch of the next generation iPhone – as well as its multiple leaks – has proved.

Apple Understanding

As I have said before, Apple understands consumers in ways that other companies seem unable to. It knows how to deliver just enough improvement in any given upgrade to retain people’s interest and loyalty, and segment the market so its products overlap (iPhone, iPad, iPod) without making each other redundent.

Take for example the iPad. Sure, it lacks some fundamental options such as USB ports or card slots, and it doesn’t do Flash, but that has not stopped millions of users from rushing out and buying it, instead of waiting for the Mark 2 version.

And the new iPhone seems to have been worth the wait as well, offering a faster processor, a thinner body, longer battery life, plus a high-resolution screen. Apple has even rectified some of the shortcomings of previous handsets, by beefing up the camera to 5-megapixels, and added a front-facing camera for video conferencing. Oh yes, and version 4 of the iOS now does multi-tasking.

No wonder then that Jobs termed the new smartphone “the biggest leap since the original iPhone.”

Hot Competition

And Apple did need to come out with a big improvement, as the competition is heating up. For a while now Android-based handsets have been carrying the fight to Apple, from the likes of the Google Nexus One, Motorola Droid/Milestone, as well as the HTC Incredible, Sony Ericsson Shakira etc.

And what of Nokia? A while back I lambasted the Finnish giant for playing it safe for too long, with half-hearted attempts at producing a genuine iPhone killer (remember the N97 anyone?). But next month it is set to unveil what looks like a genuine contender in the form of the N8, which is expected to be the first mobile handset to run the Symbian^3 (S^3) open source operating system.

So users at the moment are really being presented with a delectable choice of handsets. No wonder, then, that Google vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra, said the following recently:

“In the 20 years that I’ve been doing software, I’ve never seen a rate of innovation like we’re seeing now. These mobile phones, what’s happening to them is staggering. It seems like they’re completely leapfrogged within a quarter,” he said. “You have a phone you think is world-class and within a quarter the next-generation phone has an HD camera, it’s got a faster processor, it’s got a bigger screen…”

Business Battle

And there is another wrinkle to consider. One of the interesting developments of the smartphone wars has been not who wins in the consumer space, but which mobile handset vendor can carve out a sizeable niche in the business segment.

RIM with the BlackBerry is still the dominant player here, but there are signs that the iPhone is starting to encroach on what looked like an unassailable position. US mobile operator AT&T for example recently said that 40 percent of the iPhones it sells go to business users. Indeed this ties in with the Apple announcement earlier this year, that the iPhone is being increasingly used in the enterprise.

Speaking in January, COO Tim Cook said that business use of the iPhone had doubled since the release of the faster iPhone 3GS in June 2009. Cook also said roughly 70 percent of Fortune 100 companies were testing or using iPhones as their corporate communications device, thanks largely to support for Microsoft Exchange.

Meanwhile, a British bank revealed that it is in the process of replacing its BlackBerry phones and making the iPhone its standard corporate communications device. Standard Chartered bankers in Asia told Reuters that the London-based lender was giving its corporate BlackBerry users the option of switching to the iPhone. The bank has some 75,000 staff.