iPhonefreak

The largest collection of mobile industry folks gathered this week in Barcelona for the Mobile World Conference, formerly known as 3GSM.  Apple had no floor space, no presence at all there. It was interesting to hear about the product directions taken by Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG and others, who’s devices were dubbed "iPhone Killers’ or "On The Heels Of The iPhone". But until the conference began winding down today, there was surprisingly little discussion about the iPhone. Apple has quickly become the wiz kid in this industry… it must be aggravating.

Although many industry experts, business leaders, and pundits talked endlessly about the growing popularity of touch screens, desktop-like applications on mobile devices, convergence of multiple consumer "services" that will "rule the industry"… there was amazingly little mention of Apple, or the iPhone, which is still far in front in these areas everyone agrees are "The Next Wave", or "Giving Consumers The Content Experiences They Demand". By the way… other than the focus on touch screens, these were similar to the "directions" everyone was talking about last year.

There was alot of discussion about carriers becoming "Dumb Pipes", and how they must maintain control of the services their networks delivered. Do you suppose these concerns address or benefit consumers at all? Of course, during the keynote of AT&T’s Mobility President and CEO, Ralph de la Vega, he called Apple’s iPhone "a game-changer". He also stated that "There isn’t a device that’s easier to use… the iPhone proves that price resistance is only as strong as the user experience is weak". He wasnt just resisting the resistance by others to include the iPhone in their study of the industry, he is Dead-On.

Although Google had a strong presence at the conference with many Google Android participants,  Google’s mobile head Vic Gundotra clearly stated that "Apple’s iPhone is responsible for 50 times the number of mobile searches of any rival handset", and that "mobile search will soon overtake traditional web search if other device makers make mobile web access as user-friendly". Classy and frank, although giving the iPhone it’s props at the conference, Google was amassing their partners for an open source onslaught of devices with the Android platform, stating that "We want every phone to be a Google phone," he said…. "We are ultimately talking about thousands of devices."

The Google Android emergence is interesting, although the devices shown at the conference seem oddly focused on physical, technical issues, and less on user experience. I still believe Google and it’s partners in Google Android, and also RIM with their upcoming touch screen handsets, will present the only significant challenges to iPhone. And just when you see an impressive new device from Sony Ericsson, you find out it runs Windows Mobile 6… from zoom to snooze.

I suspect that while these folks were traveling to spain to setup booths and putting together last minute marketing materials, Apple’s mobile teams were in the lab…. diabolical.