8) Converged, portable tech

The iPhone. According to Apple, and fans of apple, the best thing since Jesus. The absolute pinnacle of portable convergance, it combines an MP3 player, an organiser, email, internet, a 2 megapixel camera with video, it has a touch screen with multi-touch capabilities, full qwerty keyboard, bluetooth connectivity and wifi connectivity.

Oh, and it also makes phonecalls.

All in all, this isn't a particularly new idea, but as it has been hyped, then hyped again, and finally overhyped, it is seen as a new wonder in technology.

The "unique selling point" of an iPhone, is its convergance. Steve jobs, when announcing the iPhone said it was a 3-in-1, an "iPod", a mobile phone, and an "internet communications device".

The thing about the iPhone, is that it isn't actually very good at any of these things. As an ipod, it flounders due to its poor hard drive, as a phone, it fails in its non ability to perform basic phone functions, such as sending MMS (picture) messages, and as an "internet communications device" it loses it's glam wow factor by the fact that it gets so fingerprinty after one week that it's barely useable, due to the only keyboard being the touch screen.

So it is effectively replacing the PDA/mobile/mp3 player by this one piece of hardware.

It is relevant in business, and to people who like to feel important. This is due to its conferance call ability and its email ability to be constantly emailable about anything any time. It is used to keep things less complicated, keeping less devices on onesself at one time, and for this, i suppose it works.

With such a converged product, there will be obviously many institutions involved. Apple, and its iTunes, provide vertical networking, as you need to buy music to put on the iphone, youtube has its own little video application on it, and O2 in the UK and AT&T in the US have exclusive rights to sell the iphone on contract.

They specifically do not allow any horizontal networking; no homebrew applications may be put on the phone, and i guess this counts as regulation, although it is probaly a bit extreme.

I think the main point i am trying to make, is that to create convergance, you will ultimately have to sacrifice some of the overall quality. When was the last time a phone had a decent camera?