By Natasha Lomas, 16 September 2008 14:55
COMMENT
What could the iPhone do better?
One thing on the first device, which they've now solved, was
the ability to send texts to more than one person
So multiple texts was a frustration but they fixed that with a software update months ago.
Some people have said 'wouldn't it be nice to have two-way cameras for doing video calling?'. And you know what, that might be something [Apple] do in future - I don't know. But the actual market for video calling is not a huge market to be honest with you. So I could tell you lots of things I've seen on blogs that people would like: what I haven't seen is anything on those blogs where they say that's a huge market demand item and they've missed it.
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I have seen some niche things which could be there but also if you're trying to package the right experience at a sensible price you can't put everything on the one device.
Another example is the [iPhone's 2 megapixel] camera Some of the handset manufacturers are just about to launch the first 8 megapixel cameraphone into the market and you do then have to question whether that's a camera or a phone and what the benefit is relative to the additional cost
There will be a market for 8 megapixel [cameraphones] I'm sure, but it won't be the huge breadth of the market and Apple's approach is they want this to be a broad product that's available to the broadest range of people and provides the broadest experience. They're not looking at a niche product. They've been very public in setting themselves a target of tens of millions of devices to sell around the world.
The iPhone doesn't support MMS but it has a great camera and it has email functionality and therefore actually the ability to take a picture and share it is there, it's just using a slightly different format of technology.
How has the business world responded to the device?
In the business and corporate [world] the appetite has been very big and we've seen a significant appetite from what I would have described as traditional BlackBerry users, so I think what we're seeing is the market for that type of integrated device is growing and what the iPhone is doing is it's broadening the category. For some people it may be a choice between BlackBerry and the iPhone or a Nokia and the iPhone but what it's also doing is getting more people to think about a more integrated device where they can do their data and their voice on one device.
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