I haear this statement everywhere, it's on the news, on forums and often turns out to be a heated discussion, however, i am unable to see what an "iphone killer" actually is...

Why is the Iphone seen to be this ultimate phone that needs to be "killed"? it obviously is not the most wanted device on the market else everyone would have one already so if someone could explain the whole definition around an "Iphone killer" that would be great..

The iPhone is a great device. I can honestly say it's the best phone I've ever owned. I primarily wanted it for calls and browsing the web and it works a treat. It's the first phone I've not got bored with after a few months.

But people are always looking for 'perfection' - something you can never achieve in a world of evolving technology. There's always something better round the corner. The iPhone isn't perfect, nothing is. But its certainly *one* of the best handsets around at the moment.

If you prefer another device because it does something different that appeals to you then great, go for it. But as you say there's no need to try to bury a device that does do great things and that many thousands of people are happy with.

It's a great device with some impressive flaws, so an iphone killer will be a phone that can do everything an iphone can do plus improving on its weaknesses, such as a technologically retarded camera, inability to bluetooth pictures to other phones etc.

Most of the time iphone fans will say "yeah but that's not what we want in a phone". fair enough. But iphone killers will end up being superior.

There will be no such thing though to the fanboys, there is nothing better in their eyes even though the first one was 5 year old technology when it first came out.

Well trolled.

*sigh*

I think this quote (from an excellent article) describes it best.


“So what exactly did RIM just do with the Storm?
Validated the hell out of Apple’s innovation, technology and — because RIM fell short with the Storm — position in the market.”

http://gracefulflavor.net/2008/12/04/apple-rim/



It's not about market share (yet), who has the biggest camera, or whether or not it has MMS. Its about mindshare for this new type of device - large touch screens, internet browser with a respectable rendering engine (+ affordable unlimited data plans) and now as a platform for applications.

Apple came in with no experience of making phones a produced a device which if not the best phone ever made is easily near the best and offered many features that were (and still are) vastly superior to the status quo. The fact that so many phones are being brought to market which either look similar to the iPhone or mimic functionality shows that the iPhone has made a substantial impact and is the phone to beat.

So many established phone companies and software providers scoffed and said the iPhone could never sell, wouldn't work and would fail, but now they're chasing it in many areas and it's taking substantial share. The problem is that by being dubbed iPhone killers (not perhaps by the manufacturers) they just give further validation to the iPhone and have to be that much better to even be considered equal - especially when they're by and large from companies with far more experience who had a huge headstart who basically dropped the ball by offering generally crappy phones for far too long.

The iPhone doesn't need to be killed, but it has become the standard by which all other phones are judged, if they're to succeed they effectively need to beat the iPhone in such a way that Apple couldn't easily catch up again. Unfortunately for them Apple came in with a platform (OS X) that will allow them to constantly improve the device even if the hardware is unchanged. Android offers some sort of competition in that regard but isn't up to the quality of OS X and things like WinMobile are pretty laughable in comparison. A lot of big companies dropped the ball in a big way and are now paying for it and having to work a lot harder than they should have had to to stay competitive. If they'd been making good enough products, improving them enough then Apple should have had a lot harder a time coming in like they did. The fact that so many people were speculating about an iPhone and wanted Apple to make one shows how poor existing offerings really were.

The iPhone isn't perfect, but it's pretty damn great and in some ways, ways that seem to appeal to people, they're way ahead.

And in many ways it's retarded. Instead of doing what Nokia, SE, Samsung do, ie give the WORLD market what it wants, Apple gave *america* what it wants and hoped the rest of the world would catch on.

Well to a point it did but they were extremely short-sighted. No-one is genuinely saying the iphone isn't good and it certainly did create a new niche in the market but then again so did the N95. The iphone may be iconic but it's not the only iconic phone.

All that said, both iphones have serious failings, failing which, if addressed could make the iphone a true world leader in handsets. But Apple don't seem to care (or at least, are simply too inexperienced).

So when a handset comes along which does just about everything the iphone does - and MORE - it's then referred to as the iphone killer. I like a phone to be 'just right' and the flaws in Apple's toy means I'd never be truly happy with it. Give me a true iphone killer and I'll be happy.

No disrespect but I think this post is really far off the mark.

Short sighted? How? If anything they were the complete opposite. Short sighted is replicating the desktop experience on a 3.5" form factor and expecting people to use a stylus to drag a scrollbar. Being a visionary is saying that in 5 years all phones will be like this so lets build it now, and thats the route Apple took.

Niche? When its the third largest mobile phone manufacturer by revenue and second by profit... in the world.

Its NOT about doing everything the iPhone does and more. There are already phoens that do that. There are phones that did that years before the iPhone was released. Its HOW it does what it does that differentiates it.

Oooohh, where do I begin.


Short sighted in giving us a phone without 3G for instance. Or a decent camera. Also can you bluetooth that picture to me please? Ah no, sorry you can't - you have an iphone.


Yes, niche. Touchscreen phones were barely known before the iphone.


Your average user isn't interested in the 'how' - they want functionability. Most of the time what the iphone does it generally does well. But also what it DOESN'T do, other handsets do very well.

From my own expierence, a week ago I finally upgraded and borought an Iphone. I looked at the Bold/Storm and Android and some others, but in the end for easy of use I went for the Iphone. Yes it's not perfect, but for my own use the only thing missing is MMS, some of my friends don't have smartphones.

The best bit about it is the interface. No booklet showing numerous submenus just a very intuative menu systems. Some of the other phones above are very good at coping the form and feel of the Iphone, but they don't yet have the easy and intuative interface - IMO.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=C5oGaZIKYvo

I am so pleased this chump is running Microsoft as he got it wrong on every count.

You could argue the iPhone is the most successful phone ever. In 18 months the one model iPhone outsells all Windows mobile models combined and on about 3% of the world market are third in revenue for all mobile phone companies, most of which sell many more phone models in many more countries. Apple would only need to hit 10% world wide market share for it to poo all over Nokia in revenue and profit on mobile phones.

3G was a battery issue and for some still is. Do people still Bluetooth pictures these days? Email them.

People do not appear to agree with you as the iPhone has greater user satisfaction rates than any phone on the market and has witnessed 300%+ growth.

That isn't being short sighted. Thats called lacking features. A completely different thing. Being short sighted would be to focus on the now of mobile phones. i.e. the megapixel race. the who can check as many boxes in the feature list race. Apple took a step back and focused on the actual operating system and UI for a mobile device. They brought in the capacitive screen, multitouch, OSX underpinnings. They said this is how a phone/internet tablet should be. Thats visionary thinking whatever way you want to look at it. Its why now 2 years later the market leaders are scrambling to put lipstick on the pig that is Symbian. And why BB moved way out of their comfort zone with the Storm. If the iPhone was so short sighted, why are other vendors following its lead and not the other way round? This is about so much more than the ability to bluetooth a photo.



Thanks for proving my point. They took a niche and turned it into the future for the entire smartphone (and ultimately featurephone) category, becoming the second most profitable mobile company on the planet at their first attempt. From zero to second in 12 months. How short sighted of them.



Disagree completely. You'd be amazed by how little of a phones feature set people use. In most cases, its simply because the features just aren't exposed because of a cluttered user interface and menu system.

I have just got the storm and have to say I loved it..............for about 2 days then the fact I struggled to make calls with it, and text with it then started recieving texts from about a week ago with it. I am getting a bit frustaighted with it at the moment and hope some updates improve the damn thing soon.

Stephen Fry talking about Phones.

http://www.stephenfry.com/blog/2008/...g-up%e2%80%a6/

Look around any forum - there are plenty of people who agree with me.


Which in the iphone's case is exactly the same thing. Apple could have made it the 'all phone killer'. They probably thought they did. But boy were they wrong.


Hey no problem, although if you read my original post I wasn't trying to disprove your point. For some reason you jumped in and agreed with me. So thank you.


As is your right. The niggling faults of the iphone would be just too much for me. In many ways it's an awesome piece of kit. But in lots of others it would drive me up the wall. Yes the interface is nice but I find using a normal keypad to be much easier. A colleague at work has one and it was fun to play with for 5 minutes but I happily went back to my N95 8gb. I've never had any problems with it and it more than meets all my needs. My upgrade is due in a few months and I have no desire to change it. I work as an insurance fraud investigator so I need a quality camera on my phone for certain situations - the iphone falls flat on its face for me at the first hurdle.

Doesn't your company you work for provide you with a decent camera to do your work with or do they expect all of their employees to provide their own?

The fact that Apple has gone from nothing to third on revenues in the time it has suggests they actually got the iPhone completely right. So while Nokia boasts about its market share most of its handsets don't actually make any money.

Remember Apple has never been about market share. Apple don't sell anywhere near as many Macs as Dell sells PCs but guess which company makes more money, has more money in the bank and has a bigger market cap?

Yeah they do, we are given very expensive digital cameras but they're not always convenient considering the type of work we do. I can't rely on a camera phone only but on the few yet essential times I'll use it, I need to know it won't let me down.


I'm not saying the iphone is rubbish or doesn't have a loyal following. But for a phone supposedly so futuristic, Apple missed off a few essential features.


But an increase in market share is never a bad thing though right?

Depends. Apple could flog a Macbook Cheapo for £399 and produce a piece of crap. Market share would rocket I suspect but they wouldn't make any money on it.

GM, the worlds largest car marker is about to go bust.

Apple tend to make quality products. If they just got their focus right they have the potential to be market leaders, For some reason, in the mobile field, they're not. I can only put that down to short sightedness and an unhealthy desire to pander too much to the american market.

Surely its similar to 'Killer App/Application'? This is the one thing that makes the unit more desirable to customers. What has the phone got that people will spend money just to get?!

Your posts get more and more ridiculous. The iPhone is a market leader as proved by the competitions desire to copy it.

The App store is a revelation which will only lead to more developers shifting resources away from Symbian and Windows mobile to focus on OS X. It has a class leader touch screen and UI, it runs OS X, the world's most advance OS, has 16 gig on board memory as standard, has access to the largest and most popular music store in the world, iTunes. You miss the point and think it is all about hardware. It isn't, it is about software and is where Apple wins and has been winning since OS X was launched 7 years ago.

Apple just seems to get it. I am not even sure what it is, but as they have proven with the iPod, they have a model that works.

As I've already stated, they created a new niche in the market with a touchscreen phone, just like Nokida did with GPS in the N95. However Apple could have done *more*. But they didn't. You're tied in to a long contract on a high tariff, obviously you're going to defend the handset.