Given its ultra thin dimensions of 11.6 mm thick, although already bested by designs from Samsung at the recent 3GSM in Barcelona, the iPhone combines a gloriously large 3.5-inch widescreen, exquisite touch controls that promise the best interactive experience ever, a full web browser, video playback capabilities, Wi-Fi, EDGE, Bluetooth, a 2 megapixel camera and a customized version of the Mac OS X operating system meaning true computing capabilities within, along with an iPod, and more, the iPhone’s hype is certainly justified.

AT&T have been riding the wave of excellent publicity, and now claim to have fielded 1.1 million enquiries about the iPhone. You can bet they’re confident about converting a lot of new customers, currently using other cell phone providers, who as loyal iPod fans simply must buy the iPhone to both add to their iCollection, and so they can use what is expected to be the coolest smartphone ever.

Of course, this hasn’t stopped competitors from releasing their own advanced models, from the similarly styled and touch screen LG Prada, to Nokia’s new N95, a do-it-all ‘multimedia computer’ including Carl Zeiss autofocus 5 megapixel digital camera, video calling, video recording, GPS navigation, full web browsing and even more features than the iPhone and represents Nokia’s best ever phone, through to new models from Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung, the Windows Mobile world and the rest.

But according to a video report at TheStreet.com, the word is that Verizon Wireless wants to make the LG Prada, the KE 850, or the iClone as we’ve jokingly dubbed it, their flagship phone to fight against the iPhone onslaught. We’d have thought the Nokia N95 would be the better choice, given its rich multimedia and handheld computing credentials that present possibly the best challenge to the iPhone so far, but we’re not Verizon.

LG’s Prada naturally has the cachet of one of the world’s super expensive luxury brands, a touch screen (although one which lacks Apple’s exclusive ‘multitouch’ capabilities, where finger and thumb can be used to make a photographer larger, for example), a 3-inch LCD widescreen, a 2 megapixel camera, mp3 player, office document viewers, basic web browser, a snazzy case, Bluetooth, a microSD card slot and, in Korea, a DMB (digital) TV tuner which may or may not ever make it to the US.

Costs are relatively similar, too, with the LG Prada set to retail at US $599 with 2 year contract, which will competes with the 8Gb iPhone at $599 and the 4Gb model at $499, both on a 2 year contract, too.

On the face of it, the feature set of both phones sounds quite similar, but naturally the smooth sophistication of Apple’s elegant interface and operating system can’t be matched by the Prada, even though superficially the interfaces seem quite similar, and the LG Prada works well enough as a phone and multimedia device.

If Verizon goes the LG Prada route, the effect will look very ‘me too’ in an attempt to copy what AT&T and Apple are doing. The LG Prada is a fine phone, does the job is says it will do on the tin, and will undoubtedly be successful for both LG and Prada. But most pundits agree it’s no match for the iPhone.

If Verizon wants to impress, and impress upon the American public the forward thinking nature of Verizon as a communications company that always has the consumer in mind, something a bit bolder than a lookalike phone is required.

After all, as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is oft mis-quoted to have said, “Boldness has genius, power and magic in it”. Releasing an ‘iClone’ just doesn’t anywhere near as genius, as powerful or as magical, but what can Verizon truly do about the ‘coming of the iPhone’, aside from wishing for the best?{moscomment}

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Alex Zaharov-Reutt  Apple  Cellphones  Gadgets  Mobility  Music  Telecommunications  Video  iPhone