Ubergizmo

Apple Inc. has managed to make every mobile phone maker go back to their drawing board ever since Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone (2G) in his key note in 2007. Now the iPhone, 3G, the ubergizmo that comes with everything you can think of plus the kitchen sink has landed in India. Many love it, some hate it, but almost no one can resist not to tinker on it.


Nokia and other brands being in the mobile business for the last 15+ years are now atleast 2 years away from embracing some of the features that's in iPhone right now! Wanna bet? Check this video "iPhone magic"





Still ain't convinced? Read on...


If the first generation mobile phones were inspired by Star Trek TOS, then the iPhone is surely inspired by the "all touch tablet PC" shown in Star Trek TNG and Voyager (during the late 80s). For the uninitiated, find details on Star Trek here (Or contact me if you are really enthu, I will convert you in to a Trekkie in no time)

iPhone = Mac PC running OS X for mobile edition + iPod Touch + Internet browser (supporting wifi, 3G and Edge) + last but not least the phone :)

This means it has lot of potential, which needs to be unleashed by 3rd party developers. Luckily Apple released iPhone SDK this year and all the enthusiastic developer are writing applications for the iPhone.

Anyway, let's quickly run in to some of the cool features/applications that iPhone has -


Games - There are tons of them and they can give Xbox, PS2, Sony PSP, Nintendo Wii run for their money. Games are mostly "all touch" and "gravity defying" (read accelerometer).

Check out Star Wars unleashed running on my iPhone



Stocks - Yep, you can get the current stock prices and also get an historical data rendered as a chart. This built-in application pretty much covers all the stocks from almost all the stock exchanges around the globe (Yahoo Finance!)





Mails - Work seamlessly with any POP3 or MS Exchanger server account. Trust me, the way you handle mailbox in the iPhone, you will stop using Outlook. Basically you use your fingers to scroll through the mails and when you want to delete them, just run your finger across a mail, this triggers a 'delete' button to popup on top of the mail.


Safari Browser - Simply brilliant! I have never been impressed about browsing world wide web until the experience with Safari on iPhone.


Music / Movies - What can I say? iPod has made Sony walkman to be kept in a museum


Skeptics - There are lot of sites which bashes out at the iPhone, let's see what are the so called features that are missing from iPhone

• FM Radio - Err, grow up guys, do you really listen to FM, especially in Bangalore?
• 2 MP camera - Those who are really in to photography never compromise on anything less than a SLR. Camera phones are for the school going kids.
• No Java support - Well, this could be officially added by Apple anytime, but for the "hackers" read this read this
• Can't share any music - There is a good reason behind this and it has been so with iPod's, but again there is "a way" to get around this problem
• No physical keyboard - Trust me, you will never need one. Virtual key simply rocks
• No copy and paste - Well, we are not using Windows, are we?
• Completely tied to iTunes - You are joking? (clue - look for T-PoT)
• No external storage - 8 GB / 16 GB ain't enough?
• Apps/music/video only from Apple store - You are making me laugh! (Google "jail break")
• No MMS - yep, that's true. But MMS is for college kids or bollywood actors, innit?
• Can't share any mp3, video, image using bluetooth - Apple philosophy, which can be over ridden
• Cannot insert any other SIM card - You can as long as you are with the same carrier. But this can be "unlocked"

Verdict

Nothing is perfect in this world, so iPhone does have its downs, but what the heck, the whole experience of using this mobile is so unique that you forget everything else. Suddenly there is a plethora of mobile devices announced by Nokia and HTC, but none of these can come close to iPhone in the near future. iPhone clicked because of MAC OS X. Symbian is an infant compared to the OS X. Windows 7 looks like it has a big hang over from OS X.

Check this video of the early version of Windows 7 (Windows Surface, anyone?)

So if you really want a cool gadget to satisfy your geek instincts, then go ahead and pick an iPhone. But do it from the Apple store, they know what they are selling unlike Airtel and Vodafone.