A new bar has been set in the world of the mobile operating system and it has been set high. Many people continually jumped at the opportunity to call every touchscreen phone to proceed Apple’s sexy little gadget the “iPhone Killer” (just like almost every MP3 player, Zune included, has been touted at the iPod killer for the past 8 years). Here are just five reasons why people on the fence about getting an iPhone will probably rush to scoop one up this summer and how the only company who could top the iPhone were the people who engineered and innovated it from the get-go.
Cut, Copy, Paste – Let’s get it out of the way; this has been a talking point about the device since day one. Love it or hate it, there’s no denying that the iPhone is one of the most sophisticated mobile devices on the market today. Other phones on the market may have better cameras, additional functionality, and even a wider user base, but only Apple has been able to wrap it all up neatly into a package that shifts the balance of power from your cellular provider into your hands. Now that the hurdle of cut, copy, and paste has been jumped I suspect more people will readily jump on board.- Spotlight – I wasn’t a big Spotlight user until the huge performance gains were realized in Leopard, but now I use it to quickly search documents and even launch my apps. It’ll serve a most excellent function on the iPhone as a handy way to search emails quickly (I currently have 4 accounts linked to my phone) as well as texts and contacts. It’s implementation is also really slick, acting as an additional home screen to the left of your primary home screen.
Landscape Everywhere! – If you’ve ever used the iPhone for any length of time you’ll realize that the landscape keyboard is much easier to use and offers greater precision in almost all tasks. This isn’t a huge deal by itself, but just one component that will make the overall iPhone experience that much better. Some developers probably won’t be too happy about it, though, as they sell their otherwise generic apps by lauding unique landscape keyboards.
Push Notifications – Developers and users alike have been waiting almost a year for this technology, which allows apps to communicate without using precious background processes. During their keynote, Apple said that phones can lose up to 80% of their battery life while running a background application. Whether this number is true or not, it’s definitely something to factor in to the overall usability of a device. Apple’s solution is a Push notification system that can inform you of simple things like when an IM is received (as demonstrated by the awesome Meebo iPhone App) or when additonal in-app content has successfully downloaded.- P2P Connectivity – I’m not sure anyone saw this coming. There are a few apps within the App Store that allow some of this functionality, but none of them have quite nailed it yet and you’d need two or three apps to encompass all of the functionality exactly as Apple has implemented it. Basically, this peer to peer system allows you to connect to other iPhone users in the vicinity (eg: within the range of Bluetooth, which is roughly a diameter of 30 feet) and share files, contacts, and even play games together. It sounds like a really slick addition to a mobile OS that’s already shaping up to be a juggernaut.
Honorable mentions include the following, with their respective caveats following:
- MMS Messaging – This is a feature that appeals more to the masses than the power users of the iPhone since MMS is just clunky email file attachment system. Thumbs down for being a 3G only feature with additional usage fees.
- Stereo Bluetooth – Seems like a niche market, but probably appealing to those specific users.
- Hardware tethering – Pretty exciting tech, but I think it’ll be a while before we see anything really useful come from this arena with the exception of utilizing the cell phone network for use with laptops.
It’s safe to say that the most recent batch of iPhone updates planned for the 3.0 release have wowed and appeased the masses. The combination of the small, “most wanted” features like cut, copy, paste combined with the technical achievements of P2P and Mobile Spotlight seemingly ensure that Apple will be seeing many more converts to the almighty iPhone come Summer time.
Post a Comment