The iPhone is and was phenomenal. It's difficult to name one that even comes close.

It certainly lacks some features (e.g., MMS), but that's not the point. The features that the iPhone has are very well executed. I'm more than willing to be missing a few minor features here and there if it means I have a great user experience for every existing feature.

It's bloody brilliant. My wife has one and after I had borrowed it for a while it felt like going back to the stone age when using my Sony Erikson.

It took minutes to set up here complete calendar, email servers, address book, web gallery and start surfing the net. I believe of the the Nokia models take 40 odd steps just to set up one email account.

In addition, using the phone is a dream. You would have to be brain damaged not to make a call easily on it. Visual voicemail, mapping, SMS, email, web browsing, etc. every one has been seamless. I haven't read a single manual and every feature has been intuitive and a pleasure to use.

On every single level (well maybe not price) Apple is light-years ahead of the competition. Considering they haven't ever made a phone before either!

Their sales may only be in the millions, but most people are locked into long term contracts with their antiquated bricks.

I can't wait for the day that Apple rules the world and Big Steve is on every screen watching me!

Signed.... Apple Fan Boy

I wish I could see Apple's balance sheet for this project. It may be that by launching the iPhone as they did, they generated a comparatively large amount of revenue from a limited user base. That might have been exactly what they wanted.

Alternatively, they might just have been a bit cocky.

There's also an interesting stretching of credibility about the term "user experience" when used in relation to the iPhone. I don't own one, but friends who do have complained about the relative difficulty of simple tasks like making a call! It's clearly good aesthetics don't make for a good "user experience" in themselves, though it clearly enables its admirers to try to look beyond it's practical limitations.

As for a lack of features, we're not talking obscure features here but ones that have been standard for several years on other handsets. Apple relied on their aesthetics making customers ignore all of this AND pay substantially more than their competitors. So far this approach clearly hasn't worked.

And as for taking the consumer world by storm... Kinda sorta. Lots of people said it looked nice. But not so many people actually bought one. 6 million units or so isn't that great a figure. Apple are going to have to drop the price a little. One analyst says that relative to Nokia's sales even 15 million units would be "marginal".

http://gigaom.com/2008/06/10/inside-the-3g-iphone-money-machine/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jun/10/iphone.stevejobs