Thursday, June 28, 2007

The Big Fight - iPhone vs Entire Mobile Industry

It is less than 24 hour’s time to stop waiting for the so called dream phone of the year and grab it in to your hands. Apple is releasing the much awaited(in fact much hyped) and next generation technology mobile iPhone tomorrow across US through Apple retail stores, AT&T stores, and the online Apple Store.

iPhone is the much hyped gadget which I ever heard about. Almost all the famous technology web sites and magazines are publishing articles about iPhone for the past 3 month. If you look at social bookmaking sites like Digg.com, del.icio.us and reddit.com you will know how many front page stories are about iPhone.

But is iPhone worth for so much hype? Will it reshape the mobile market? Is any other company trying to compete?

Let’s see what Apple is saying about their iPhone and other mobiles which are in the arena. The following comparison chart is released by Apply couple of days ago

Comparison of iPhone, Nokia N95, Samsung JackPack, Blackberry Curve 8300 and Palm Treo 750

I have done a little more analysis on the feature of the mobiles iPhone, N95 and BlackJack and here is the comparison chart

 

Apple iPhone

Nokia N95

Samsung BlackJack

3G

No

Yes
(HSDPA-enhanced)

Yes

Ability to change screen orientation when rotated

Yes

No

No

Light Sensors

Yes

No

No

Browser

Safari

Nokia Web Browser with Mini map

Internet Explorer

Camera

2 mega pixels

5 mega pixels

1.3 mega pixels

E-mail

Displays HTML-rich; Push IMAP (Yahoo); IMAP/POP3

POP3/SMTP

POP3, IMAP4

Expansion slot

None

microSD

microSD

GPS

No

Yes

No

instant messaging

No

Yes

Yes

Keyboard

Normal

Normal

QWERTY

Memory

4GB/8GB

160MB

64MB (RAM); 128 MB(ROM)

MMS

No

Yes

Yes

Music player

iTunes

RealPlayer

Windows Media Player

OS

Mac OS X

Symbian S60

Windows Mobile 5.0

Processor speed

Unknown

330MHz

220 MHz

Ability to turn screen off when put up to your ear

Yes

No

No

Replaceable battery

No

Yes

Yes

Screen

8.9cm (320x480 pixels)

6.4cm (240x320 pixels)

5.6 cm(240 x 320)

Spell checker

Yes

No

No

Touch screen

Yes (multi-touch sensors)

No

No

User can install 3rd-party apps

No

Yes

Yes

Video capture

Unknown

640 x 480 (30 frames per second)

Unknown

Video output to TV

No

Yes

Unknown

Weight

136g

120g

99g

YouTube

Yes

Yes

Yes

Display

Glass

Plastic

Plastic

Talk time

8 Hours

4 Hours

5.5 Hours

Source: CNET and respective manufacturer web sites

The red colored features are little disappointing. It is very hard to believe that iPhone does not have the capability to send an MMS and capture a video. But it is true!! Here is the list of all features which iPhone does not have

  • MP3 Songs as Ring tones
  • Games
  • Flash support
  • Instant Messaging
  • Picture messages (MMS)
  • Video recording
  • Wireless Bluetooth Stereo Streaming
  • 3G
  • GPS
  • Removable battery
  • Expandable Storage

2 Comments:

Anonymous said...

N95 DOES have a light sensor to automatically change the light of the screen. That's the thing next to the front camera.

Anonymous said...

Instead of making a comparison, here is a list of differences between the iPhone and the N95


Bluetooth
iPhone - May work, but is a very limited and closed system with few practical uses.
Nokia N95 - Has A2DP and AVRCP. This means you can
Use it as a wireless music storage device in your car to transmit your music in excellent quality to your car stereo to play back the music.
Control the phone's playback of your music collection from your car radio.
Use both cameras of the phone as an excellent wireless webcam for your PC with Mobiola Webcam.
Use microphone of the phone as a wireless microphone for your PC with Mobiola Microphone Remote.
Use a wireless keyboard such as space saver Think Outside keyboard or any typical BT wireless keyboard.
Use high quality wireless headphones (Sony, Bose, Motorola, etc.) that allow control of the music playback on the phone.
Use your PC wirelessly to move, copy, delete, and edit files directly on the phone.
Use your PC to wirelessly control all the features of the phone and at the same time display the phones screen on your PC, recording it if your wish, with Mobiola Remote Phone Control.
Access and utilize external Bluetooth GPS positioning devices.


Computer access
iPhone - Very limited closed system with no direct access to the data for repair if it were corrupted.
Nokia N95 - With cable, WiFi, and Bluetooth you can
Drag and drop, synchronize, share, and stream files, (music, pictures, video, documents, files, and folders) to or from any PC on your network, to any uPnP device.
Map network drives on your phone for access from PC's, access mapped network drives on your PC's from your phone with SymSMB.
Access and download all the data on your PC's and listen to and watch your entire PC media collection of streamable media (music and movies) from anywhere in the world with Orb.


WIFI
iPhone - Works
Nokia N95 - Works and is reported to stream data at a faster rate than the iPhone.


Bar-code reader
iPhone - None
Nokia N95 - Get contact information instantly at trade shows from the other members cards.


Record sounds and voice
iPhone - None
Nokia N95 - Excellent microphone with which you can
Record anything you want, including calls. No limit in length.
Remove the required 5-second beep with Ultimate Voice Recorder.


GPS
iPhone - Cell tower emulated triangulation. Voice instructions.
Nokia N95 - Built in real GPS hardware, cell tower emulated triangulation, External Bluetooth hardware capable, Assisted GPS or any combination of all three. You always have some kind of fix. With the GPS you can
Find your current location in a foreign city at night and find and get direction from where you are to where you want to go.
Get directions to services of all kinds.
Use third party add-ons such as Tomtom.
Use the Nokia Sport Tracker for walking, riding bikes, hiking, etc. This provides several different statistical analyzes of distance, elevation, time and distance, including laps and the actual path taken with the ability to save and compare your results with other results.



Camera
iPhone - 2 mega pixel. A common place phone camera that will not produce images that most people would want if they went to a concert or show.
Nokia N95 - 2 cameras. 5 mega pixel and VGA for video conferencing on EU networks. The 5 meg camera takes stunning pictures day and night. Carl Zeiss optics. Comes with editing software right on the phone. With third party applications your can take pictures of pages and email them or fax them.


Video capture
iPhone - None
Nokia N95 - 640 x 480 @ 30 fps. Stunning quality, even at night, with audio. Includes digital stabilization.


Activation
iPhone - 2 year contract that adds up to quite a bit.
Nokia N95 - Buy it unlocked from Nokia or Dell directly and have a warranty and no contract to take it where ever you want.


Infrared
iPhone - None
Nokia N95 - Works great. With it you can
Transfer data.
Control all the Infrared devices in your house and office.
Connect to your PC and use the phone as a modem.


Screen
iPhone - Very nice large touch screen. (finger print prone). Requires 2 hands to operate easily.
Nokia N95 - Smaller screen than the IPhone. A larger screen would have been nice. Easy one handed operation.


TV Out
iPhone - None
Nokia N95 - Works great with the supplied cable. Use it in a hotel room with a BT keyboard to read email and edit office documents, Use it on your TV to play video games, movies, and share pictures.

Cable Interface
iPhone - proprietary iPod type connection.
Nokia N95 - Mini USB and a standard mini plug that all ear buds use. (same plug for TV Out)

Speakerphone
iPhone - ?
Nokia N95 - People do not even know I am on it.


Speakers
iPhone - Mono sound
Nokia N95 - Probably the best set of stereo speakers every installed in a cell phone.

Ring tones
iPhone - Is it even worth mentioning?
Nokia N95 - Use pretty much anything you want. Any audio track on the phone can be used. Create your own mix right on the phone itself and save it as a new mp3 or ring tone.


Traveling
iPhone - You are locked to ATT, period.
Nokia N95 - Unlocked and support for various networks across the globe. If you are traveler, the iPhone is not even a consideration if you do your research.


Sexiness (I am putting this here because CNET mentioned this)
iPhone - Sleek and cool looking, but viewed as a toy in the workplace.
N95 - Viewed as THE phone of a technologically competent professional.


Battery
IPhone - Longer lasting than the N95, but not removable
Nokia N95 - Replaceable battery. If you find yourself in the EMERGENCY situation where you need to make a call and do not have access to a charger and your battery is dead, you can just replace the battery with a spare. With the iPhone you could be stuck off the side of a cliff in a car with no power and trapped. Unfortunately, Apple seemed to overlook this MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE OF HAVING A CELL PHONE IN THE FIRST PLACE. EMERGENCYS!!! I would actually be willing to get my wife this phone if it were not for this issue.


Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)
IPhone - None
Nokia N95 - Excellent on board chip for hardware decoding of video and 3D games. Supports DirectX and OpenGL. Stunning game playback on the phone or your TV that the most hard core XBOX/PS# games are impressed with.




Additional third party applications
IPhone - None at this time.
Nokia N95 - Several different office applications, programming, game emulators such as MAME (allowing playing pf 1000's of known arcade game classics), Synch applications, Tune musical instruments, Gmaps, Google maps, Phone Guardian, GSM Tracker, ybroswer, FExplorer, SysExplorer, studio nokia, mobile web server, cCam, Carbide ui, SymSMB, Instant Messaging, VoIP,, SSH/Telnet, rar files with Mobilerar, stream with Orb or TVersity, Mobiola Webcam, Mobiola Microphone Remote, Mobiola Remote Phone Control, Tomtom, NavXS and others, Aspicore GSM Tracker, ultimat voice recorder, really nice 3D games by the hundreds, HourPower, Digital Clock, Mobisophy InteractiveVoice Call Master, Webgates Advanced Call Manager, MobieGenie, Divx player, CORE Player, Flash 5 player, PeerBox, TextQuick, Mobile Weather, eBuddy, MSN, Mig33, ScanR, Palringo, Adobe PDF support preinstalled, MS Excel and Word support pre installed, S60 Internet Radio, VCEL, ShoZu, TypePad Mobile, OperaMini, The Kaywa Reader, Jaiku, Nokia Sensor, Nokia Team Suite, Gmail Mobile, Symella, SymTorrent, Python for S60, PuTTy, QReader, ReadM, Chords for S60, S-Tris 2, Nokia - Wellness Diary, Acala 3GP Movies, studio_nokia, MyStrands, OggPlay, JabpLite, Calcium, GCalSync, Autolock, MobileRar, Nokia Local Search, Scenetone, Tasky, Nokia DJ Mixer, Fring, WorldMate, CellTrack, Loc Bluepulse, Spodtronic, Mobixie, Hibaru, DJMixerNSeries, SafeTxt, GamesFlash, Market Simplified for Mobiles, myNumbers, Qibla Compass for Mobiles, Handylearn Counter, Weight and Measures Quick Study Guide, mShell, Virgin Radio & Podcast Player....

I could add to this list for hours. Many of these applications are free. Most of these programs are well written and feature rich. These are not trivial little tidy bits. If you really want a smart phone, it has to be smart enough to know that it will not do everything out of the box and some things should be left to outside programmers to develop. The iPhone 's application list is not even a bad joke compared to the N95. The problem with comparing the two is that it takes months just to get a handle on the capabilities of an N95. Most N95 users do not take the time to respond to such comparisons, as the comparison is not only foolish, but requires quite a bit of time to accurately list the N95's capabilities.