The Financial Times has been running a number of articles in the run up to the launch of the iPhone. Yesterday John Gapper wrote about how the iPhone might force the Mobile Networks might just have to fix the network as owners of demand data rates closer to DSL. Side loading of content shows that Apple do not trust the networks at present, I have to agree the last few weeks of rain has once again demonstrated that the Orange 3G network is far from built here in London.
Today Kevin Allison's analysis is about the risk Apple has taken in entering the Mobile phone sector. The Industry Insiders who have commented have all taken the opportunity to have a dig at the fact that technically the iPhone is not up to the technical standards of 3G handsets in terms of form and the only benefit is that it has a full operating system.
Whilst I agree that in terms of Form the iPhone is not a natural evolution of mobile phones the issue is that 3G may have passed. You only have to look at the fact that many consumers are just not interested, if they were then Motorola would not have managed to ship 100M V3 handsets over the last three years.
Whilst I await the launch of test devices in Europe I am prepared to hold fire on the iPhone, but I expect that the PR machine at Apple to continue to drive interest. Talking with others it seems that the strategy for Europe will differ rumour has it that Carphone Warehouse, Vodafone and T-Mobile will be the launch partners rather than an exclusive deal with a single network.
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