Should you wait for the iPhone? Will it live up to the hype? What are the other options?
With the official launch of Apple’s iPhone mere weeks or months away (Vodacom won’t say which), an increasing number of South Africans are asking: “Should I wait?” Those with contract upgrades due are also wondering out loud about what to choose.
This largely depends on two things: can you afford it and do you really want to use everything the iPhone offers?
The first question is much easier to answer than the second. It’s highly likely the phone won’t be available “free” on most contracts in this country, and this means that you’ll need to “buy” the phone (obviously not outright) and then still sign up for a 24 month contract. O2 in the UK, by comparison, “sells” the 8GB model for £99 (±R1 500) and the 16GB model for £159 (± R2 400). You then sign up to a 600 minute-type contract, or a more “standard” 75 minute contract. One would imagine you’d need to sign up for at least a (peak) 120 minute contract, which would set you back about R300 per month. Simply put, the iPhone is not going to come cheap.
The other question is trickier to answer. We know a local version of the iTunes store has launched (rather stealthily in the past few weeks). But (and this is a huge “but”), it’s understood that this store will only “stock” applications (apps) for the iPhone, and no music or video. Will you be satisfied with a limited selection of programs and enhancements in our local store? At least you’ll be able to find apps in one place, instead of scouring the web for third-party programs compatible with your device.
A drawback of the iPhone is there’s no keyboard. It’s touch-screen, which is great for scrolling through music and navigating, but you need to “type” on a picture of a keyboard. However, some smartphones with mini QWERTY keyboards don’t work that well as the keys end up being tiny.
Obviously there are a lot of positives, too: 3G, maps with GPS, the app store (maybe), and the browsing. Oh yes, and you can use it for calls too. This new generation iPhone also has Microsoft Exchange functionality. This is massive for corporates, and the phone can sync with your work e-mail, seamlessly.
Right now this is the only thing that stands out as a massive bonus. You browse the internet almost as you would on your laptop, and it’s unlimited (no caps, no price per megabyte). Sure the screen is smaller, but the iPhone ships with Mac browser Safari, and until you’ve played with it and experienced browsing the internet on the phone, I’m told “you just won’t understand”.
But, the smartphone market leader in South Africa (and globally), Blackberry, is obviously not ignoring the pending arrival of the iPhone. Nor is Nokia, the other popular maker of high-end business phones. Both have rather suddenly stepped up their media and communication efforts and the other manufacturers will follow.
Smartphone manufacturers have cottoned on to the problem with finding apps for phones, especially in the South African market. A local Nokia executive admitted this morning that the “download folder experience is a little thin”.
The official line from RIM (parent of Blackberry) is that they “welcome the competition”. Deon Liebenberg, RIM’s director for sub-Saharan Africa, says the launch of the iPhone will “bring attention to the market we’ve invented”.
Thing is, Blackberry phones, the Nokia Eseries and certain Samsung and Sony Ericsson models can also sync with e-mail. The trademark “push” e-mail functionality on Blackberry (which means you don’t need to keep hitting “send/receive” to check for new messages) makes these devices a firm favourite in the enterprise market. If you want your e-mail on the move, then this works. Plain and simple.
The friction around e-mail connectivity is being felt between other manufacturers. Nokia have stopped offering the Blackberry Connect service on their business phones. This allowed a user to essentially have the push e-mail experience without actually owning a Blackberry. Nokia will instead ship phones with its proprietary “Intellisync” service.
Most new business or high-end phones ship with 3G, and a lot of them have GPS or some sort of satellite navigation. It’s the browser that sometimes is the sticking point.
Steven Ambrose at World Wide Worx expects to see a lot of innovation in the coming months, as the iPhone creates “enormous awareness of what’s possible on a phone”.
World Wide Worx expects the launch of the iPhone globally to force innovation among other handset manufacturers. So expect the other players to make some massive improvements to the built in browsers on their phones.
An American friend now based in Singapore (and an Apple fan boy) lives the hype. He tells me the iPhone “can wash your car, find you dates and save you seats on the subway… all before brunch”.
Maybe it is that good?
* Hilton Tarrant contributes fortnightly to “Broadband” a weekly column on Moneyweb covering the ICT sector in South Africa. He’ll be waiting for a friend to commit a few thousand to an iPhone, and then he’ll decide…
This column was originally published on Moneyweb at http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page39?oid=216558&sn=Detail
