An iPhone debate with too many hopefuls…

The great Apple iPhone debate of "Hype or Hope?" at Mobile Monday Sydney last night still waged heavily into the evening way past our actual closing time. 🙂 The love/hate emotions the iPhone brings out in people from the mobile industry are yet again more evidence of the religious fervor that surrounds anything Apple. Unfortunately my team, "The Hype", lost out to "The Hope" team via a live audience vote using the very cool mobile voting system from Mobile Online Business (http://www.mobileonlinebusiness.com.au/). Huge thanks to Rob Manson for the great work in operating the system for the evening.

As for the debate, the Apple iPhone does deliver a wondrous mobile user experience and this encapsulating experience is a wake up call to the mobile industry as a whole that we need innovation like this to take mobile to the next levels. BUT, such innovation shouldn’t send the industry back ten years by locking that user experience into exclusive carrier relationships, or locking the device down and restricting what can and can’t be installed by 3rd party developers, or resurrecting the bad development of mobile web sites that are proprietary to a single device.

I was asked by some to reiterate my Hype debate comments on the Blog……

1. Apple locks the iPhone user into 1 carrier per country.
2. 40% of all iPhones are hacked – customer’s are sacrificing their warranties with Apple to gain choice of which carrier they want to use.
3. Not open – the iPhone is locked down. You can only install what Apple or the carrier allow you to too.
4. The iPhone Software Developer Kit (SDK) prevents access to music APIs.
5. Apple uses anti consumer practices by preventing customers purchasing with cash or more than 2 devices.
6. Forcing us back into a Mobile Web – iPhone sites are for iPhones. The Internet is about access to all devices via all connections. Not an iPhone mobile web vs everything else.
7. No 3rd party applications allowed. We keep hearing it will be "open", but the current beta SDKs prove it will be restrictive in who they let onto the device.

Whether or not the iPhone is Hype or Hope, potential customers and businesses must assess the facts and choose according to their needs. A little research goes a long way 🙂

REUTERS – Quarter of Apple iPhones "unlocked": analyst

NEW YORK TIMES – IPhone Flaw Lets Hackers Take Over, Security Firm Says

APPLEINSIDER – racking down Apple’s missing 1.4m iPhones

NEWS.COM – Bring a credit card if you want an iPhone, and you only get two

NEWS.COM – Piper Jaffray: AT&T paying Apple $18 per iPhone, per month

INFORMATION WEEK – Apple Releases iPhone SDK Beta 2

Posted By Shane Williamson