iPhone - A Great Computer
Last week, when referring to the iPhone, I said I'd bought a new computer. I still feel that way too. The iPhone is an extension of my Mac, a subset of it. I am finding myself quite happy to use it even when a computer is at hand.
For example, last week I was sitting at my Mac and did a bit of online banking, transferring money here and there. But I was using my iPhone.
Why? Yes, it would have been faster on my Mac, and even easier. So why use the iPhone?
Because it was there? Because I could? Yes, but really, because it was easy enough. Using the web on the iPhone is quite acceptable, to the point that I am quite happy to do so. And most tasks on the iPhone are easy.
In fact, I've written this entire article on my iPhone. Nearly 700 words or so using the Notes app and then emailed to me. Again, because I can, and because text entry is that easy. And it's convenient. It's much easier to pull the iPhone out of my pocket <b>anywhere</b> and add another paragraph or three than trotting off to my computer. What's more, I've even edited it on the iPhone. I was intending to edit on my Mac but found myself with half an hour to kill and, even without cut & paste, it was easy enough. In the end, only the final edit and proof read were done on my Mac.
Keyboard entry on the iPhone really is a delight, especially if you trust it. That is, if you type confidently, your accuracy seems to go up. And with no physical key to depress, it allows you to type much faster.
Because it's such a great computer, the iPhone is a game changer and, as many others have written, the App Store is the home run. But even the built in apps have turned the world on its head. And then there's also web access tailored specifically for the iPhone.
In Australia we have one of the best ads for the iPhone going around, and it's not from Apple. It's from one of our major banks, ANZ. It demonstrates online banking on the iPhone, but the site is customized to take advantage of the iPhone. As the ad claims, ANZ is the first Aussie bank to develop iPhone specific Internet banking. That is amazing -- after one month the market penetration of the iPhone is so great that companies are saying "come to us because we support the iPhone." You can see the ad on YouTube.
And what has been the cost to Apple? Nothing! Soon Apple won't have to advertise the iPhone at all because everyone will do it for them. iPhone compatible is a badge that is eagerly sought.
That ad sells the iPhone as the device of choice for handheld Internet banking. Not bad for a device we've only had for a little over a month. Think about that. From zero to market leader in a month. Not that I'm sure there was a market before...
Despite what we used to think was acceptable handheld interneting, the iPhone has shown it was like comparing running shoes to a car. Windows mobile who? Blackberry who?
In reality, it looks like a whole new market. It's almost like handheld web browsing didn't exist before the iPhone. As I read recently in Australian Personal Computer magazine (September 2008 edition), iPhone users are five times more likely to use the web on their devices than owners of other smartphones. Obviously, this is because it's so much easier.
That figure shows why it's daylight second. Windows Mobile devices and Blackberrys aren't even in the same market, although they are hastily making plans to join in. But Android's is the one to watch, and then those two could really struggle when up against the cool iPhone and the popular Android.
And we mustn't forget the iPhone as a gaming platform. At QuakeCon 2008, John Carmack, co-founder of id Software, said that the iPhone is more powerful than the DS and PSP combined. And I confess, the majority of my use of the iPhone so far has been gaming. But when you've got great games like Super Monkey Ball, Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart, Aurora Feint, Tap Tap Revenge, Trism, Sol Free, Muddle, and Dactyl, it's no wonder!
It might even be a better gaming platform than the Mac. Not surprising, then, that I keep calling it a computer.
With gaming, mobile internet, the App Store, and so on, the iPhone is turning out to be a killer device in a few markets. And yet, it's still just getting started.
The iPhone is a remarkably good computer. Don't buy it because it's a phone, or even a smartphone; buy it because it's a computer.
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Comments
Not only is it a computer, it’s the computer of Steve Jobs’s dreams! It’s a computer in which he has absolute control over what you can buy and what you can install on your “computer.” And if he changes his mind on an app he approved, he can kill it with the flip of a switch. What more could you ask for?
If my memory serves me right, didn’t Apple have strict controls over apps that could run on the original Macs too? Didn’t they try to control that? And we saw where that got them!
Android is going to be soooo interesting.
Android is going to be soooo interesting.
I hope beyond hope that they won’t screw the pooch on this one. I’d love to get a device as easy to use as the iPhone but that wasn’t locked up tighter than Tom Thumb’s butt.
I compare the I-Phone we have now available with an exe file extension. Th exe file was the most important one when the first computers with Windows 3.1 appeared on the market. Look at what we have today: the exe file is still there. That is how I see the I-Phone: a great invention that will continue to amaze us even after many years have passed.