Playing catch-up
It's both a credit to Apple and an indictment of the rest of the industry that, over three years after it was launched, the iPhone remains the standard by which all other smartphones are judged, and largely fall short.
When the iPhone was first launched in 2007, its many hardware failings were mocked, just as has been the case with the iPad. But the device looked so pretty, and the UI was so much more helpful and intuitive than any other device on offer, that it has made Apple one of the top five mobile phone players from a standing start.
This year's MWC was all about the UI. As well as Windows Phone 7, we had Motorola focusing on its Motoblur interface, Samsung launching the Bada platform on its Wave handset, and smaller companies like Else attempting to do something original. Even the chip guys were focusing on user experience in the form of technologies like NFC.
We also saw the alliance of two companies that have seen their traditional markets threatened by the rise of the smartphone - Intel and Nokia. They decided to merge the development of their respective mobile platforms into MeeGo, a gang subsequently joined by Orange.
Nokia and Intel will open the MeeGo repository by the end of this month and have realised that the only way they're going to make their mobile platform truly representative of what the end-user wants from a mobile device is to offer-up millions of dollars' worth of software to the broader development community and let them run with it.
Of course, the answer to our original question is unique to every end user. For those of us lucky enough to work from home, the argument for a mobile device that does everything is not so compelling. The ergonomic benefits of having a good old-fashioned desk, monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc, are just too big to give up.
But people who spend most of their time on the move can now do more with their mobile devices than they would have thought possible even ten years ago. The challenge for the phone industry is to make it easy, compelling and affordable for us to do those things.
