Google is on track to launch Gphone as per the digitimes market rumors. Google is most likely to launch its own OS for the Gphone, in contrast to the popular mobile phone OSes in the marketplace which are Symbian and Windows Mobile. Apple has opted the custom route as well launching iPhone with its own custom OS and controlling all aspects of user experience.

Here are the things to keep in mind for coming Gphone:

1. Google launches Gphone with custom OS, and also makes Gphone OS available to mobile handset and mobile device providers.

2. Google decides not to use inferior 2.5G (Edge) technology to Gphone (unlike iPhone) and ships 3G, this will instantly put Apple under pressure and will make Gphone a superior product winning over customers.

3. A 3G phone will take longer to develop and launch and will likely push the launch of the Gphone into 2008.

Further Reading: Gphone rumors at Mashable

Apple will introduce 3G version of iPhone in 2008 (pocket-lint report), though we do not know what time to expect the new iphone next year.

As per Stuart Miles of Pocket-lint site:

Making the comments at the “Mum is no longer the word” press conference at the Regent Street Apple store in London, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple said: “You can expect a 3G iPhone later next year”.

David Berlind at ZDNet says:

If the report is true, this could be worse news for Apple given that the price drop had to have come so soon to stimulate demand. There’s nothing that kills demand for the current generation of a product like an announcement that the next generation won’t be stillborn with obsolete networking technology the way the currently available generation was. Even if the report of Jobs saying this isn’t true, my guess is that a 3G iPhone in 2008 is pretty much a sure bet.

Currently the iPhone available in US is crippled 2.5G (Edge). Apple has cited the currently available power hungry 3G chips as reason to stick with power efficient 2.5G chips. Apple had also recently alienated iPhone early adopters and fans by dropping the price of iPhone by $200 in a few weeks after the launch, though later they announced $100 back in form of Apple store credit.

See also: Coverage at Mashable , The Street and Yahoo Tech

Steve Jobs said that Apple decided to make the iPhone because everybody hates his/her cellphone. For a company that has built up a cult around designing the coolest gadgets that folks want, this was a new foray.The media went nuts with the coverage over Apple’s iPhone. The gushing and drooling went overboard.

What’s Cool About the iPhone?

We Americans get the crappiest phones thanks to the carriers. Here was someone who tried to set things right. Powered by Apple’s unconventional approach, a terrific design, brilliant execution and savvy marketing, the iPhone forced everybody to sit up and take notice.

It has tons of great stuff and most folks have written enough about it. Its crowning piece is undoubtedly, the software driven user interface. Apple has invested well over 200 patents to protect its efforts.

The iPhone has spurred the competition and galvanized other players into action. The latest gizmos from Nokia, Samsung and others reflect the touchscreen that the iPhone provided. Others are ramping up to come out with iPhone lookalikes. Clones of the Apple baby are supposed to be almost as good or in some cases, even better than the original.

What’s Not?

Ignoring Texting

While US lags the rest of the world in texting/SMS, it is catching up in a big way. Can the iPhone users hammer away with a single finger on the glass surface without looking at the letters? Tomi Ahonen put it bluntly that unless Apple addresses this ‘killer-app’ within six months, it is out of this game.

Locked Phones and Subscribers

The US mobile carriers love their customers too much to let them go or give them choices. Even though Apple got AT&T wrapped around its little finger in this deal, they should and could have done much more. There is enough evidence that making it easy for the customer to unlock his/her phone has worked wonders for the original providers in both Europe and Asia. It has also missed a golden chance to prevent the two-year contract for subscribers, which could have actually benefitted AT&T in the long run.

Locked API

Not for nothing, the OpenMoko’s offering is called ‘anti-iPhone’. Having an open platform and allowing all third parties to develop applications is the right way to foster growing, open and secure innovation.

Slower 2.5G Network

The claim is that it is more pervasive - ah ha, to sell more cheeseburgers. Who cares about moving to the later, better network so that the carriers can be forced to upgrade quickly and provide a better service to customers? So what if the rest of the world has moved on.

No Personalization

Even if Apple is synonymous with ‘Cool’, the lack of personalization is a drawback. Of course, bulk of the buyers lay their hands on the iPhone just to flaunt that they belong to the Apple club, and nobody dares to bring this up in the Apple context.

Battery problems

Enough has been said and written about this. The user cannot change it and it has to be sent to Apple for replacement.

Lack of Other Features

For a convergence device priced such as this, it offers a pretty poor feature-set: poor camera resolution; no video recording; no GPS, etc. Feature-to-feature, the Nokia N95 for example, beats the iPhone hands down.

Enterprise Space

The iPhone needs to work with MS (Direct Push), RIM (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) or Motorola (Good Mobile Messaging) technologies to work in the enterprise. It will have to offer enterprise-class VPN software. It is possible that Apple is coming out with a new version that addresses these issues. There’s already a hubbub about this.

While most of the above arguments apply to the US market, the arguments against Apple’s success are stronger when it comes to Europe or Asia. Compared to these markets, US lags way behind in almost every aspect and since Apple plans to introduce the iPhone to the European market by end of this year and in the highly advanced Asian market
in the first quarter of next year, its challenges are far greater to break into those markets where it has little or no foothold.

Conclusion

While I commend Apple for an excellent first attempt in this sector, could we have a more balanced view of the iPhone please?

I have been looking at the predictions made by all the pundits out there about what the 2007 crystal ball foretells. All the predictions can be summarized in one word: “more”. “More” of everything: features, technologies, widgets, buzzwords, alphabet-soups and of course, complexity.

We live an age of fragmented attention. We increasingly multitask. Too many time-slices that end us up in a zombie-state (or, what Thomas Friedman calls “continuous partial attention“). Take a look at a typical webpage. There’s just too much information and there are too many distractions. If it is a page you visit regularly, you unconsciously learn to filter it out. Some day, when you ‘wake up’ and take a hard look at the same page, you are confounded by the amount of weeds it always carried. Each time you visited that page in the past, your brain was working hard putting those blinders in your eyes so that you managed to ignore the junk. And, when you visit a completely new webpage, you are overwhelmed to jimjams. Sadly, all the buzz ahead is about making things more quicker, responsive, faster transitions, video, more information, … you get the drift.

Shouldn’t we design what the consumer actually needs? Is there a way to stop feature bloat? iPod comes to mind. Isn’t it time to let simple take over again? I join the small, but rising clamor things simple. With the new mobile devices (eek, on the those tiny screens), you will be always connected, searching, surfing, watching and recording video, conferencing, gazing at advertisements, navigating, listening to music, checking stocks, ordering groceries, monitoring your health, … ending up doing lesser and lesser with more and more.

Is there a lesson to be learned from the design of Apple iPod and iPhone?

Further Reading:

Marissa Mayer expounds on: The beauty of simplicity
Extreme Programming is a fan of simplicity
David Kelley’s podcast on being simple and brilliant at IDEO
Check out what Paula Scher has to say about simplicity