Whatever the technical strengths and weaknesses of the Apple iPhone, the hype surrounding the device has been widely hailed as furthering the cause of the mobile internet, since the phone incorporates some innovative characteristics that make the user experience somewhat more manageable than on other web-focused mobile products. Yet, as Apple struggles to finalize deals with European carriers of the iconic phone, it is becoming more and more apparent that the iPhone, in fact, represents a massive backward step for anyone interesting in a truly open mobile web. Part of this is down to Apple’s relationships with the cellcos, which encourage closed walls – though these will change over time and the company is unlikely to get away with such good terms in Europe as it did with AT&T. More seriously, Apple’s habitual hostility to opening up its own environments or supporting those of others is a real blow in the mobile world, which needs all the help it can get to boost its slow and painful progress to openness. The popularity of a device that represents the shut-down platforms and exclusive carrier deals of the slowly disintegrating old order is a negative, because it threatens to fragment the immature mobile web even further.
Some of the problems arise from Apple’s refusal to support third party systems that are becoming de rigeur in high end mobile devices, especially those adopted by enterprise users. According to sources tapped by online service Unstrung, this is a major stumbling block in negotiations with potential European carriers, especially Vodafone ‘ which has already walked away from a pan-regional deal, apparently impatient with Apple’s high demands, but is still in the running for some national agreements.
Particularly problematic for the cellco is the iPhone’s lack of support for Microsoft Outlook integration, something even the anti-Windows Nokia has had to adopt; and for Cisco’s PIX firewall formats, among the most commonly used and popular in the world. Sources claim Outlook and Exchange do not work as claimed on the iPhone, particularly in terms of calendar syncing. This will be hard to fix as Apple does not license the Microsoft Activesync technology, a step that, like Nokia, it may be forced grudgingly to take soon.
These omissions come on top of the most glaring gap in the iPhone’s armory as far as European cellcos are concerned, the lack of 3G support ‘ just at a time when they are finally seeing uptick in user demand for their 3G networks, and some prospect of migrating customers away from 2G at last.
The negotiations with Vodafone, T-Mobile and O2 are likely to be hard fought, with none of these cellcos – which have spent so much time swinging the balance of power towards themselves and away from the handset makers ‘ willing to give up as much control as AT&T has for the sake of carrying the iPhone, for all its probable consumer appeal. Delays in the announcement of the final deal are also down to the need to fix some bugs, hardly surprising given that the iPhone system is basically a first generation attempt for Apple in the mobile world.
According to Unstrung, other enhancements that the carriers are demanding include support for full search on the mobile YouTube application, rather than the one-word version Apple supports. This may be a relatively minor matter, but it epitomizes the conflict that the iPhone represents between the mobile web as a specific, though cutdown, platform for the phone; and the attempt, that Vodafone belatedly supports, to recreate a full internet experience on small devices.
Apple’s very limited opening up of the iPhone to third party developers means that a specific ecosystem is growing up around the device, which will draw creative programmers to the platform, but will help to fragment the mobile web and damage progress towards an open experience that is accessible from any client, as in the PC internet. Apple, often hailed as a champion of mobile internet evolution because of its work on user interfaces, is in fact a device maker, with the same need as the more established handset majors to try to keep its products differentiated and therefore premium priced ‘ and without the scale of a Nokia to support a radical business shift to openness in the mobile market.
Despite Apple’s restrictions on third party developers, many large software players are developing iPhone versions of their products, mimicking the product’s interface. Examples include the social networking services Facebook and Multiply and Google’s cutdown version of its mobile search and Maps applications. Such developers clearly believe the iPhone will achieve sufficient mass to make their efforts commercially worthwhile ‘ although with 1.5m units targeted to ship this year, they are perhaps more interested in the marketing boost of any association with the iPhone, than in the volumes involved. They are particularly working to neutralize the more painful aspects of the iPhone user experience, such as the lack of physical keyboard. They also, at least until the potential 3G upgrade, need to develop their software to make the most of the often snail-like pace of the AT&T EDGE network.
This will help improve iPhone users’ lot, and could further boost sales, but it is so Apple-specific that it only serves to fragment overall mobile internet efforts. Web pages built for Apple’s Safari browser are often impossible to view with other mobile or PC browsers ‘ although it is possible that Nokia, which uses Safari as the basis of one of its own interfaces, but in a more open way, may turn its strengths to creating some sort of bridge between the two worlds. The dilemma for developers is in some ways an extension of the whole Apple Mac/PC history, but if the iPhone does become a major handset force, this could have a negative effect on the nascent mobile internet. Creating a universal platform will always be far more difficult on mobile devices than on PCs, and the attempt to unify the systems will not be helped by an influential player staying outside the fence.