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back to article iPhone to become Blighty's favourite smartphone

Apple's iPhone could become Britain's best-selling smartphone, market watcher Canalys has claimed - and it's all due to the end of O2's exclusive on the handset. Speaking at the Canalys Mobility Forum in London yesterday, analyst Pete Cunningham revealed that the iPhone was France's favourite smartphone in Q3 2009. That, he …

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  1. Magnus Ramage

    There's favourite and there's favourite...

    Favourite smartphone model maybe, but given those figures, by no means Blight's favourite smartphone platform - that would be Symbian by a long shot. Not that I'm bitter (as a Symbian user) but slightly bemused by the huge coverage the iPhone gets compared to the much more widespread Symbian platform.

    That said, I'd buy an iPhone like a shot if only they weren't a) so expensive and b) so huge. I want a phone-sized phone, traditional candybar shape, that can fit in my jeans 'coin' pocket. I don't think I can be alone. To be sure, a bigger phone means a bigger screen, better browsing etc, but I prefer the carrying convenience. (Re expense: I mean on pay as you go, with relatively modest data usage, not on an all-you-can-eat monthly contract.)

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  2. Matt 13
    Thumb Down

    not so good!

    I like my Iphone, but I dont like the fact that every 3rd person has the same phone!! its hardly exclusive! and I like being a bit of a poseur! All my previous smartphones - P800 onwards have been premium devices with an air of exclusivity!

    everyone having the same phone is fine, if the thing is free, but if im paying (a lot!) then i like being a little unique!

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  3. RichyS

    Really smartphones?

    Okay, so technically Symbian is a smartphone platform; but I bet that the vast majority of Nokia S60 devices are sold as glorified feature phones. Only very few Nokias are used as smartphones in the same way that the iPhone, Android, and various HTC and other devices are.

    Ask most S60 Nokia owners if they had a smartphone, and they'd say no.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Solution

    "the huge coverage the iPhone gets compared to the much more widespread Symbian platform."

    Because iPhone = good and Symbian = shite.

    Problem solved.

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  5. Bassey

    Re: RichyS

    "Only very few Nokias are used as smartphones in the same way that the iPhone.... devices are."

    I think you're getting "smartphone" and "penis-extension" mixed up there Richy!

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  6. Bryan Anderson
    Paris Hilton

    So no Palm then?

    Did I get it right? No mention of Palm/WebOS anywhere? Guess it's generally accepted then that nice though the Pre is, Palm don't have the legs to develop it and get appplications written fast enough to make it a viable proposition.

    Paris - because she also looks and feels nice but has no real future.

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  7. ForceMajeure

    OTSO Symbian...

    Where's my Psion Revo with 3G, WiFi, Colour Screen, microSD slot and Quad-band mobile phone features?

    I loved my Psion Revo. Fantastic device. Still like my iPhone a lot but it's not a patch on my faithful old Revo which still gets used though infrequently now.

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  8. Jerome 0

    @ Matt 13

    When someone finally brings out a smartphone with a decent: camera (with flash), music player (with standard headphone socket), screen and web browser, I will buy it. I don't care if everyone else buys one too, or if I'm the only customer.

    It's an electronic device, not a fashion accessory. It needs to do stuff, and if it looks cool that's a bonus. If I wanted to be a poser I'd buy something pointless like a Rolex or a Porsche, not a phone.

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  9. Jonathan Hogg
    Grenade

    iPhone definitely selling on Orange (anecdotally)

    I crumbled and upgraded to a new iPhone 3GS with Orange yesterday and while I was in the store going through the sales checklist, three other people came in to get new phones and they all wanted an iPhone.

    The next UK sales figures for the iPhone are going to make interesting reading.

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  10. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

    @ not so good

    Add a privacy screen to it. That way you will NOT be showing off, and it makes it different from all the other ones (didn't like the mirror thing, too glitzy).

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  11. Law
    Paris Hilton

    Interesting...

    I just ditched my iPhone and got a HTC Hero. I'm still using my o2 iPhone contract, once that's over, I will see what upgrades they have to offer me.

    Love my android phone, there's very little between them really - I miss the slightly better portrait keyboard on the iPhone, and the o2 account app... that's really about it.... oh, and the dock capability for my speakers, but that's nothing a new hifi system or second hand nano won't fix. :)

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  12. drh

    @ Magnus

    When mobiles only really served one purpose, phone & texting, the cool thing was to keep shrinking them until you could hardly use the buttons :-)

    Today there are 100's of different phone models to choose from and there are many to suit your needs.

    The iPhone has one intention, thats to provide people with an excellent display enabling features like surfing and email usable. They achieved that and will continue to improve other features over time including the hardware specification (camera etc) and make the software even better.

    I have used many devices over the years and quite frankly you cannot get a great user experience of the web , email and watch video's etc if your phone is a small device like you are requesting it to be, so I think your asking a bit much for the iPhone to get to that size, it would just destroy the whole thing!

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  13. drh

    @ Law

    You comments surprise me I have to admit, not a course of action I would take thats for sure.

    No-one can deny that the iPhone revolutionised the user experience of the UI. Some people still critisise it for no keyboard??? they just don't get it, why clutter up a phone with a huge amount of buttons that are not needed all the time, on-screen enables you to only host the relevant buttons for what you are doing at that time, pure genius in my opinion!

    I have used many MP3 players over the years, but it wasn't until I finally got a iPod that I got why Apple have taken 75% of the market.

    So you had an iPhone, you invested in accompanying hardware like dock speakers and you decided to go another route rendering that kit either redundant or you having to invest in a nano. doesn't make sense to me. I can only assume you took a real disliking to the iPhone.

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    1. Law
      Reply Icon

      @ drh

      Pretty much - I loved the phone until the 3.* updates, once they hit, my phone went from near perfect to extremely unstable. I know it isn't the case for most iPhone users, I have friends who haven't had the issues I've had, but some who have. I got hit hard by battery and lagging. At times, the phone wouldn't "slide to answer", and once or twice the phone just turned itself off. Every new update patched some issues, while creating new ones - so in the end I just gave up. Factory resets , settings resets, reflashing, even jailbreaking didn't remove the issues I was getting.

      Sad really - it really is a nice phone. But I'm free to cross back over whenever they introduce background apps and an iPhone equivalent to osx-dashboard or android widgets. :)

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