Apple iPhone has partly managed to change the way smartphones are approached. Or shall I say, it has been a catalyst to the smartphone boom that we are into.
We always wanted smarter smartphones :P, we wanted to lead usability, we wanted superior web, we wanted smart media and here came the iPhone which brought in so much innovation in all these fronts that the industry still looks up to it and terms any other touch device an iPhone Competitor / killer. iPhone has become a benchmark for measuring any new smartphone that is released.
One of the strongest pillars in iPhone’s continued success is the SDK / AppStore.. The buttonless approach with multitouch and accelerometer has let the developers make some startling apps for the OS X mobile platform. Not just that; the developers have been paid well for their efforts. The App store via the iTunes has seen over 500 million app downloads in less than a year. Many of these are paid apps that give the developers a majority share of revenues.
But how influential is Apple iPhone’s success? iPhone is still an expensive gadget (with or without contract)! In India it still costs Rs 30000 for a 8GB iPhone 3G. Globally Windows Mobile, Symbian, Blackberry etc sell way more than the iPhone. Each of these platforms has dozens of different models currently in the market, while the iPhone 3G is alone. While they catchup with their own App platforms in the coming months, Apple iPhone needs to prepare to stand the competitions on this front aswell.
Apple has sold roughly 20million iPhones till date (add the iPod Touch to it if you want). While Nokia has sold over 400 million phones in 2008 alone. 20 million out of the 1200 million phones sold is a remarkably tiny share (smartphones might be a much smaller share of that 1200 million though)! No doubt, its one of the fastest growing, innovative and hugely promising – IMO for the iPhone to be called success 5 years down the line there would be a need for many more such.
The iPhone still has some significant shortcomings and a lot to deliver. It is the potential of the next gen iPhones that we are hoping would deliver. While competitors have caught up to the touch-revolution – iPhone needs to get some variety. I won’t point out the same old things that we have been asking for since months/years, but would expect Apple to come up with stronger, and Complete devices in coming months.