PMP Today

The judgment has been nearly universal: the iPhone is a breakthrough device, matches all the hype, it’s a flawed but an exceedingly beautiful machine. Yes, it’s the supermodel of gadgets. But a world entirely made up of iPhone is not exactly something everyone is looking forward to. The other guys, I mean the Nokias, the Motorolas, the Sony Ericssons and even the HTC’s would have to eventually come up with a proper rival for the iPhone.

So what can we expect from such a rival, an iPhone beater, iPhone killer, if you will? If this device or group of devices are going to be mass produced soon, it/they have to forget about one thing: iPhone’s multi-touch Mac Os X Leopard user interface. Fughetaboudit. No one’s ever going to come up with a phone or a PMP or anything portable that can compete with iPhone’s user interface. It will take years. What I’m talking about should only take months.

1. The ultimate QWERTY business phone with touchscreen and loooong battery life: CrackBerries shouldn’t fret. If RIM is going to survive the iPhone onslought, it will have to come up with the ultimate business phone. Not only should it have a QWERTY kewyboard, which should beat iPhone users in any speed email contest, RIM should offer an alternative touchscreen interface for a more leisurely approach to business emails. I’m not entirely serious about this, but I feel if there’s a touchscreen on their BlackBerry, BlackBerry users are less likely to switch. Two weeks standby time will also help a great deal. Of course, we expect full document support (with editing) and MMS; 3G, HSDPA, video conferencing are basic requirements.

2. Multimedia device with 5MP camera or higher, comprehensive video and audio format support with up to 12 hours of video playing: This is more in the area of portable media players with camera and the new addition of cellular calling. Design would be essential: device should be comfortable in the hand, especially when you’re taking a photo or video, but the screen should be wide enough for watching movies. One can easily imagine video conferencing with loved ones or talking on Yahoo Messenger during long train trips.

3. Music phone with Internet Radio integration: I don’t care whether it integrates Yahoo! Music, Last.fm, Pandora or my favorite, Live365. I can’t remember a better music listening experience than when I’m logged on to an Internet radio station. Type in your favorite artist, select a track and you’re in for hours of music heaven. Stations like Last.fm and radioblogclub not only gives you the artist you want for free, it’ll also choose other artists that you might like for you. So it’s an education in music as well. The iPhone with it’s WiFi and complete web page rendering may have our future devices beat, but I’m betting the time an iPhone user actually takes from typing in the Internet radio url to streaming the music will enough of a turn off to keep repeating the experience and instead consider our Internet Radio Phone. Battery life should supportup to 24 hours of music playing, while 18 hours is pretty OK too. Music recording, direct WiFi purchase of songs are really the life-blood of should add the adrenaline in such a device. Of course, this is pending a reversal of that pesky RIAA ruling.