At the end of my previous blog posting I’d barely answered the question why the iPhone?.

Initially I was looking for a phone which had decent web browsing and email capabilities, and was considering a Windows Mobile professional phone with a QWERTY keyboard. The AT&T Tilt was on my shortlist. Then I ran a “jailbreak” on my iPod Touch. This allowed me to download and run third-party applications on the iPod Touch, most of which were free. Instead of just using the iPod Touch for an hour or so a week to watch video podcasts, suddenly there was a whole lot more functionality. This got me thinking how much more useful the iPhone would be with “official” third party applications. These are third party applications written for the iPhone and vetted by Apple. I’d also taken note that some of the software I used on my Palm would soon be available on the iPhone.

Then there are the 3G iPhone’s missing features: battery is not removable, no video record feature, no MMS messages and no copy and paste (I’m probably missing a few). I took stock of these and decided that they were outweighed by the unique touch interface and the possibility of the iPhone becoming the next mobile application platform.

Posted on August 13th, 2008 by mervyn