The dangers of joining the iphone party
This post is thanks to the meeting with an iphone enthusiast over the weekend. Now this iphone enthusiast isn’t from India and has been using an iphone for some time alongwith his Mac. While checking out the cool interface of the iphone we casually started to compare the features of his iphone with the HTC Windows Mobile we were carrying.
this is more relevant as airtel and vodaphone are planning to come out with iphone 3G soon in India (for airtel the launch is fixed on Aug 22nd)… while the pricing is not yet disclosed, i would assume that they may cost around 30K in India. and the irony is that in India there isn’t a single 3g network and the ones most likely to get are the govt. carriers like BSNL 🙂
What follows below are some discoveries we made in that friendly comparison:
iphone has cooler interface than Windows Mobile. Agree. One of us has tried to include a iphone shell (iPhonz) on Win Mobile but the quality of that shell was really bad and the phone had to be rebooted.. i am now running a skin that emulates the slide to unlock feature..
we all agreed that apple is a control freak and iphone is a marvel of their work! you can’t get any app on the phone if you don’t buy it off the apple store without jailbreaking the iphone (voids the warranty!!).. meaning thereby you have to pay for every app you install on iphone.. windows mobile comes with numerous applications developed by the community and are available for Free (a good site to get this freeware: http://www.1800pocketpc.com)..
the commercial applications that you develop for iphone have to be hosted on the apple store and they keep a cut off your IP.. no such bull crap for windows mobile… you get to keep the money on what you developed..
the iphone is going to come out in 1 or max 2 versions… very limited choice.. 
i.e. if i wanted a qwerty keyboard i can’t do anything or a slider keyboard.. windows mobile does offer you that option from multiple vendors.
the iphone is really maimed on the following accounts:
- no copy paste of contents (e.g. email/ SMS text) or files from one location to another (how can one NOT have this??)
- no bluetooth transfer of anything i.e. mp3, images, videos
- can’t use iphone as wireless modem for your PC.. hence you can’t share your internet with your own PC..
- the camera is a simple 2 MP and can’t record video
- no Java support (thereby a lot of existing apps won’t work)
- the battery is locked inside the phone.. changing the same means getting to the apple store…
- Can’t send MMS.. imagine this!!
- no FM radio
- can’t use MP3 files as ringtones..
- can’t use ipod as external storage device to carry documents, pictures etc.
- there are no expansion slots available apart from built in memory..
- no flash or silverlight support
- no office apps installed… i.e. u can’t read documents on iphone or quickly revise your presentation
- if you are a coporate customer you don’t any security features like remote wipe if ur phone gets stolen or any corporate management server to manage mobile devices..
Well it is upto you to buy into the hype or be intelligent and make an informed choice..
when technology is a part of the whole! 
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