“When Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the wraps off of the iPhone 18 months ago, the wireless establishment offered a smug response. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a Nokia executive sniffed that Apple’s new gadget merely validated his company’s strategy, and voiced his surprise to journalists that the iPhone didn’t use the latest 3G networks for fast data connections. ‘Overall, it’s very exciting for us,’ he said, implying the mighty Nokia had nothing to worry about,” Jon Fortt reports or Fortune.
“A year and a half later, as the iPhone 3G arrives, Apple’s rivals look a lot more flummoxed. The little gadget has catalyzed the wireless industry, boosting earnings for Apple and U.S. partner AT&T, and inspiring an avalanche of copycat touchscreen devices. Samsung has the Instinct, a chunkier, less elegant knockoff. Research in Motion is readying the BlackBerry Thunder. LG has the Dare and Nokia the dubiously codenamed ‘Tube’ phone,” Fortt reports.
“But with the competition scrambling to develop an iPhone killer, might they be missing the point? Judging by customer raves, the iPhone’s magic isn’t in the features – not the 2-megapixel camera, or the Safari web browser, or even the music and video capabilities,” Fortt reports. “It’s in Apple’s knack for making all those features easier to locate and use. What’s more, as the iPhone 3G debuts this week, Apple’s trademark simple approach is doing more than setting consumers’ tongues wagging – it’s changing the game in wireless, from phone sales to software development.”
Obviously, Fortt gets it. Full article – recommended – here.