I have trouble with some of the suggestions for the iPhone. I would agree that a better camera, video, Flash, and background processes would be nice additions. I don't miss them, but they would be nice to have. But a physical keyboard instantly kills the advantages of the iPhone and turns it into something crappy like a blackberry. The advantage of no physical keyboard is that the keyboard can be modified via softare (as they did at least once already) and you get the new improved version without having to buy new hardware. Along the same lines the budget iPhone nano makes no sense either. Right now an iPhone is $200 with a contract. A nano product would be smaller, rendering the screen real estate unusable for much of the functionality it has now. So now you have a crippled phone (like every other manufacturer makes) and you sell it for what? $99? $49? You've saved the customer very little money and you've destroyed the usability of the phone.

I just don't see a physical keyboard nor a nano version happening. I think those suggestions often come from people who don't understand the design decisions Apple made when creating the iPhone, or how they envision the device being used by their customers.

The iPhone is undoubtedly a wonderful product, but it's simply far too large to be carried in my pocket comfortably. Also, I prefer a proper keyboard with buttons. So I prefer a smaller, specialist phone.

Put simply the only thing stopping me ditching my N82, is the woeful camera on the iPhone. At the moment I carry my 16GB Touch and phone around,, but I'm not willing to sacrifice the jump between the cameras resolution. Roll on July, but certainly now with my breath held....

This is a no brainer in the US. Americans are very patriotic and will buy American products in preference. Why buy a European phone when a cool US device exists?

Motorola used to dominate the market, but lost the plot. Apple have simply taken this over, barging their way in with a device that left Motorola dead in the water. However, it was still US vs US companies.

Motorola's response? - ditch the highly developed and well understood Symbian OS and back the completely unknown quantity that is Android instead. Same reason behind this though - Android perceived as American, Symbian OS is European.

"Perhaps Nokia are following the mantra of 'it pays to be late'. They got beaten to the punch with swish UI's, they might as well wait for the dust to settle from the Pre, and then wander onto the pitch and knock all the young'uns for 6, having seen all the lessons they've learnt"

Did you learn nothing from reading that article?

"Basically Apple is keeping it simple because their target audience is simple."

Sounds like a Nokia owner.

Too large? I admit I was a bit worried about that before I bought my iPhone but actually, it's so thin that it slips into either a front or back trouser pocket very easily without you even noticing it's there. Quite literally so... on more than one occasion I've frantically searched the house trying to locate my iPhone only to find it was in my pocket the whole time!

Whilst I also don't necessarily see the draw of Apple running multiple lines of iPhones, you're not quite right when you say "I feel Apple will would see multiple models as a dilution of the the brand", I think you're forgetting the iPhone's closest corporate relative, the iPod. Apple have clearly 'diluted' the brand here. Once upon a time the iPod was the iPod. Nowadays, it's everything from that ridiculous new nano thing, all the way up to the iPod Touch. There are flash versions, hard drive versions. Some have screens, some don't. Some come in a thousand fruity flavours, ... well you get the idea.

At this point, the iPod Touch is closer to the PDA you always wished Palm would have made, than the original iPod. It's a long way away from the "it does one thing and does it well" ethos that was the original iPod mission statement.

So yeah, I disagree with Andrew Orlowski's take on where Apple should take the iPhone, but if Apple see a way of creating new product lines that wont cause too much user confusion, don't doubt they'll do it.

I just cant see the point have something really unnecessarily complicated, the Americans spent zillions of dollars developing a biro that would work in space whilst the Russians used a pencil.

No pun intended, but if a phone is too complicated you just either get pissed off with it or dont use the complex bits, my wife has an iPhone & its not only straightforward to use, but quite good fun as well.

As one of the ex-EMCC who left to work on the iPhone I can say it's Symbian AND S60 (plus UIQ which was also awful).

The problem is that it was an OS that was designed for low powered devices years ago and now has major structural problems that basically prevent Nokia from doing much to improve that. If you ask me Nokia should just wrap it up, and use Android or buy Palm for their Web OS which looks VERY nice.

However as I saw at EMCC, it's probably the case at Nokia that too many people have put their reputations or it's where their skills lie behind Symbian and therefore will ignore the issue until it's too late.

Shame!

But I don't think it's the performance of the phones hardware. I think the N95 actually beats the iPhone in OpenGL benchmarks.

@us market

As an American who can't swing a dead cat without hitting another American (I'm surrounded by the bastards!) I have to disagree with your assessment of Americans buying phones because they are perceived to be American made. While a small segment of the population undoubtedly feels this way (hardcore union members with cult-like devotion come to mind), most Americans don't care. I'll bet only 1 out of 10 Americans could tell you the home country of many phone manufacturers and far less than that would have a clue that Android was released by Google. A small subset of them are technophiles and would know, but most technophiles just want a device based on certain specs, not country of origin. I believe the iPhone is a hit because Apple released a device where all functionality was easy to use, unlike any other cell phone over her released by any other manufacturer (foreign or domestic).

@Jez Caudle

Your post is one of the finest posts I've ever seen. You and I obviously share the same gift of using vivid, clarifying analogies. I find that creating a prostitute analogy clarifies an issue far greater than anything else I could possibly do. If you are trying to make an argument and you really want to pound it home (no pun intended) then go for the prostitute analogy.

@Adam Starkey

"Nowadays, it's everything from that ridiculous new nano thing, all the way up to the iPod Touch."

Let's see, the Shuffle, Nano and Touch. That makes 3, you covered 2, wow I guess that's "EVERYTHING". If you want to say 4 by mentioning the Classic, well that's just a leftover from early days and doesn't really count. The Touch is the replacement for the Classic and represents the high end music player. The other 2 were created to grab up the bottom end of the music player field.

about the almost complete absence of anti-Apple bias in this article. Indeed, it can almost be read as suggesting that The Register in some way tacitly approves of an Apple product, and I'm we're all aware that this represents the thin end of the wedge. Before we know it there'll be a grudgingly impressed review of the latest Mac Pro, thoughtful analysis on the release of OS X Snow Leopard an wholesale delight at the next iPod revision. Stop the rot before it starts, say I, and down with this sort of thing.

We've got a few as surrogate Blackberries (i.e. hooked up to Exchange et al).

The inability to run multiple processes means there is NO way to run any kind of security, so if someone cooks up an iPhone virus you have a problem. The lack of cut-n-paste was also a HUGE omission, and there is no real way to kill the phone when lost or stolen - the contents cannot be protected AFAIK.

And there's that stupid aspect of not being able to use it as 3G modem..

However, after saying all that, sometimes an app comes along that makes the phone worth it for the app alone. For the Sony Ericsson P1i it was the business card scanner (OCR for business cards), for the iPhone it MUST be "Tap Forms", the database application.

Never since the Psion Organiser II have I had my hands on a database application easier to use. Sure, I had to improve the UI to the Psion's FIND and SAVE functions (the input editor sucked) but it was useful due to its simplicity. This is really the first time in years I've had my hands on something that betters this.

Now if there was only a way to add a laser keyboard I'd be fine - I'm still all thumbs on the iPhone..

I also can't see Apple producing multiple iphone models

they said they were only looking to get 1% of the market within 2008

they've done that, they're probably looking at getting 5% next, but not looking for total market control yet

and anyway - they're computer and ipod ranges aren't diversified. Apple don't like to be mediocre in all ranges, they prefer to be good in just one or two.

"If you want to say 4 by mentioning the Classic, well that's just a leftover from early days and doesn't really count. The Touch is the replacement for the Classic and represents the high end music player."

My wife has a 16GB Touch and absolutely loves it because she never had more than about 8-9GB of music on her old 120GB iPod, and the combination of wifi and decent browser means she can check her regular online haunts without having to lug her laptop all around the house with her.

Me, on the other hand... yeah, the PDA-ness of the Touch appeals to me, but I've already got a Touch that provides all my PDA needs, it just wears a HTC logo instead of an Apple one. And I've got roughly 120GB of stuff on my Classic with probably 10-15GB more waiting to be encoded/transferred off the PC, so the idea of even the 32GB Touch being a replacement for it really doesn't work for me. Now, if there was a Touch with at least 128GB of storage, for around 200 quid, then I'd be interested. Until then, the only replacement for the Classic is another Classic.

but how long did they take to dilute the ipod brand? there were many years were the only ipod was the form factor that we now refer as the "classic" model

and it's still only really 3 models - the Touch if anything is part of the iPhone brand, just with the pesky battery-draining phone options removed

"the Classic, well that's just a leftover from early days and doesn't really count. The Touch is the replacement for the Classic and represents the high end music player."

So neither the Nano or the Touch offer storage capacities greater than 16GB, whereas the Classic offers 120GB, and in your world the Classic exists purely because someone at Apple forgot to remove it from this year's product line-up.

Don't be a pillock. The Classic will be around at least until the Touch can reach 64GB at an acceptable price point, and even then, it'll likely still have a place in the market. It exists, because it fulfills a need that none of the other iPods can. So, yeah, there are *four* products in the iPod line, all of which are very different, and are marketed in very different ways.

Anyway, what was your actual point again?

Because Apple just have to brand 'iPhone'. Their latest campaign is about the number of apps:

'only on iPhone'

Adding new models implies that some apps won't work on some models or won't offer the full range of functionality - and that's a way of pissing people off.

Sony Ericsson, whilst they're still with us, constantly has to struggle to tell customers the differences between its nigh on indistinguishable and bafflingly named phones. They've already lost the marketing war.

Nobody tells me if it is a good 'PHONE what is the reception like? Can one hear clearly? Does it ring/vibrate loudly/hard enough to be heard/felt on a noisy tram? The battery of my simple Nokia (3.2M camera, alarm, calendar, good SMS/MMS) lasts for nearly a week of light, daily use and still for two or three days of really heavy use, including travelling (I notice that travelling by train or car drains the battery, presumably because the 'phone is working hard to keep a signal as it changes cells). It looks decent too and is genuinely small enough not to look like a teaplate against the ear.

In other words: I want a powerful telephone, with good message sending/receiving, decent alarm/calendar, loud ring and, really important, long battery life for those logn weekends away when I really do not want to carry a charger. A decent camera is a definite "nice to have". Oh, it should be small enough not to compete for space with all the other things one has to carry in one's pockets nowadays and robust enough to survive the usual drops, knocks and crushes of real life.

So, much as I like Apple computers (I've got one, Death to all Windows), tell me, can the iPhone compete with a cheap, simple Nokia for that lot? Or is it really only for the man/woman wearing a jacket/handbag and being very careful not to lean against the bar, crushing the device nicely? And if it is running a form of OS X, why can it not do multi-tasking? Has it managed to learn British English or Swiss German or are we still expected to become American? (my biggest gripe against Apple computers).

"Basically Apple is keeping it simple because their target audience is simple."

Exactly right - which is why I LOVE my iPhone!

...that El Reg will stop trumpeting every new phone, mp3 player, craptop, lawnmower and food processor as being the next 'Apple *[insert product here] Killer'?

The author excellently explains in the first half of the article how the Apple iPhone does things the right/Apple way, and dominates the market. This way of business is the complete opposite of what the other companies were doing.

In the second half the author reverts to a mental sheep, going baa, baa, but Apple HAS to do things the way the looser companies did it to stay ahead.

Apple will do business the way it is doing it now. The iPhone will only get better, it will not splinter into 20 different devices.

"In their wisdom networks have done all kind of similar things over the years - disabling Wi-Fi, for example, or blocking ports. But most of all in their pricing policies for data."

Every potentially interesting phone manufactured is locked down in a stroke of brilliance by the networks. I wanted to develop MidP Bluetooth applications to control a home automation server via bluetooth, the Nokia SDK had support for it. The kicker was that Cingular disabled all 3rd party MidP functionality of the phone including letting the user run his own Bluetooth apps. I've seen networks sell phones with disabled WiFi also.

For a decade the networks have routinely blocked all innovative potential because they wanted to control innovation, as a result, innovation was stamped out.

Apple came along and produced a phone where it appeared to be innovative, but in reality it was simply unencumbered by many of the restrictions networks placed on other phones. Apple definitely benefits from being a status symbol and can charge 70% more for that reason, but their true innovation is embracing third party development with their iphone store. Although personally I am still extremely disappointed that the iphone must be jailbroken to install any apps by oneself. This control Apple reserved for itself is an obvious avenue for someone to come along and sell an even "more innovative" phone.

The bottom line, sell a phone that is open and innovation will follow as it did with the PC/internet. This is what people want and as apple has demonstrated, are willing to pay for.

All I hope is that their success convinces everyone else to overturn decades of bad decisions.

Dilution of the brand should be secondary to dilution of purpose. I'm more likely to spend an extra £50 on a phone if it has a very good camera/screen etc.. Making a version with a shoddy camera just infuriates people as if they wanted something with good EVERYTHING, they cannot get it in one device.

HTC need to learn this lesson with their cameras.

iPhone Nano is where they'll go, everyone loves things that do the same as X but in half the size.

If they really want to to be fancy they could stick a mini projector in it for when you want to watch films or run size-dependant iPhone apps but the screen is too small.

Still wouldn't buy one myself, but undoubtedly the iPhone hugely publicising touchscreen tech and making it available is a factor in it's success, you think it would have been as popular with a normal keypad and screen? Add to that an existing fanbase for Macs and you've got yourself a free, frenzied word-of-mouth ad campaign.

I liked this article as it answers the question I raised the other day to a friend, why did they stop the fold-out keyboard (n-gage-esque) designs? My friend had one and it was flimsy but showed potential.

"So the classic technique for a successful manufacturer is to differentiate"

Ah, I wondered why I've been waiting a decade for a single device that does everything I need, despite there being no technical barriers whatsoever to its inception. I guess I'll just have to stick with my 5 year old Sony Ericsson a while longer.

It's Symbian, the royal junk OS for mobile devices, it was designed badly for really low end devices over 10 years ago and has all sorts of incredible stupidities when you develop for it; developing for Symbian is horrible, painful and buggy; you only do it becuase you get paid, compounding this is that ports to and from Symbian often entail a significat rewrite... if/when Nokia dumps Symbian from their line, they will be comptetive for 3rd party developers (in contrast their propietary OS, ISA for S40 phones although simple and limited is much, much easier to write for). When Symbian dies, the world of mobile phones will be a much, much better place: easier to develop for, more reliability and actually faster at the end of the day {Symbian's "optimzations" often slow you down because of the convulted programming one does to just write to a string.}