iPhone is the last 'must have' handset, says analyst

Stephen Withers
Monday, 30 June 2008 13:03

Business IT - Technology

"Most software won’t sit on handsets at all, but will be online and accessed over networks," is McCabe's prediction. But the more you do on the web, the more data you'll be transferring each month. Mobile data charges are coming down in some countries, but in many places aren't at the stage where you can ignore the cost.

How many mobile carriers provide unlimited data for a flat fee? And how many fixed ISPs are moving away from all-you-can-eat plans towards relatively small base limits with swinging penalties for excess data?

Back at the peak of the dot-com boom, everyone seemed to think bandwidth would soon become practically free. Eight years later, that's still a long way off.

So I reckon we'll all be running apps on our handsets for a fair while yet.

The thing that might make the biggest difference is the advent of Android. The idea of an open-source platform for phone firmware and applications is a very powerful one.

The wide adoption of MS-DOS and subsequently Windows provided with a wide selection of hardware and an even wider range of applications to choose between, not to mention a relatively standardised user interface. If Google and friends have their way, phone buyers might come to see Android as the new Windows - in the most positive sense!

If customers like what they see when Android phones start to arrive later this year - and that depends on what the phone manufacturers' design teams come up with as the Android software - mobile carriers are going to find it hard to resist the platform.

As McCabe said, "Telcos need to get ready for a world where they don't control the bundling of handsets, software, online services and phone plans, but their customers do. It is coming faster than they think."