Death of the smartphone/ new network deals ahead ?

[Devil's Refugee]

You have to wonder how much of a shake-up releasing the iPhone will have on the market. I mean, look at this

http://www.mobile-review.com/fullnews/main/index_eng.shtml

(Zante, 2nd phone from the bottom)

Are people really expected to think this is a great phone to use, or even look at ?? Until the iPhone, I was struggling to pick something which was revolutionary, or didn't mean having a cr*ppy stylus to type with, or sliding keypad which added a further 10mm to the dimensions. Yeah, the iPhone isn't perfect, but for a first attempt it's shown up the major competitors as being considerably lazy in R&D (but then, I blame the general public for not wanting anything different !)

I read a report by uSwitch that they are also predicting that Nokia, SE, Motorola could potentially follow the same direction with Apple and secure an exclusive network deals for new phones (but let's be honest, they'd have to be pretty good phones to be able to secure the leverage Apple has managed)

I think the next 12-18 months will be very interesting times indeed for both hardware and networks.

 

[defeated]

I don't see any impact of iPhone on these, most of the models listed on that page are not much far away from their pre-iphone brothers and sisters.

 

[kdarling]

What's funny is that a lot of companies had touch UI phones in R&D for years, but their sales departments were convinced that everyone wanted the info packed onscreen... so tight that you need a stylus. For business users, they're not wrong.

But for consumers, I think the merger of phone, PMP, TV, radio, etc is pretty cool.

Anyway, other touchscreen phones coming:

Sophia Nani for Japanese:

http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/sophia_nani_the_japanese_iphone_killer.php

OpenMoko for Linux developers:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/openmoko/

And of course, everyone in China wants the Meizu... IF it ever comes out:

http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/blog/littleredblog/0,39056119,62026256,00.htm

Great times coming!

As to whether this means more locking into carriers... I think with Congress investigating the deal now and complaining about it, we'll see more of the opposite happening: more open choices.

 

[Teddy's]

ok, I don't want to sound like an "Apple Zealot" but...

Oh man, those other phones are REALLY FUGLY!!!