At least that’s the verdict of Bryony Gordon on this latest must have gadetry:
I was trying to work out why I seemed to be the only person on the
planet not to be excited about the invention of a phone, and wondering
if perhaps there was something wrong with me, when I realised it was
because someone had already invented the telephone, all the way back in
1876.
From the reactions to my earlier post on the subject, many of you disagree.
In
Tim,
Don’t get me wrong – I hate mobile phones with the kind of passion that can only be borne from having to talk enthusiastically about wee bit plastics day in, day out.
However, the comment you quote is priggish to say the least. It’s like pissing on the tyre because someone’s already invented the wheel.
Its certainly pretty, but its not that much new.
Similar phones exist, perhaps Apple have made the interface better, perhaps they’ve done some neat things in the software.
This doesn’t to me really make it revolutionary. Just as Apple didn’t create the first home computer, they havn’t created the first of this style of phone. What they may have done is improved on it and marketed it much more effectively however.
Wow what a twit Ms Gordon is in reality. That sort of idiocy says more about her than it does Apple or Steve Jobs. Or could this be a case of slagging something off people are interested to get more attention.
I plan to get one. I hope that Apple will do for mobiles what they have done for the MP3 player.
I currently have a Nokia 7710 that does all the things that the iPhone does – play music, surf the net in a real browser (opera), it’s widescreen so you can watch videos on it, and I’ll still be very interested in getting an iPhone just because it really looks head and shoulders above what I’ve currently got in terms of interface.
She’s got a point. It’s a phone. It’s well-designed, but not half as revolutionary as Jobs and the fanboys would have people think.
One of the biggest stories today is about Cisco filing a suit against Apple over the use of the iPhone name. The Times seems to think it’s more important than the level of kids with 5 GCSE results.
The “revolutionary” part doesn’t apply to the phone, it applies to the way of interacting with the device. If it’s as natural and pleasant to use as it seems to be it will be a revolutionary way of interacting with other devices too (e.g. your TV recorder).
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