Communication Breakdown

Last night I took in the latest Jobstravaganza, aka the iPod refresh conference, via some deft liveblogging by Engadget. Watching the unveiling of the iPod Touch, aka the iPhone with no cellular connectivity, something occurred to me: this is an MP3 player with Wi-Fi, a browser and a virtual keyboard built-in.

Well, duh, you might say. But think of all this stuff that's going around about the iPhone becoming a business tool - now realise that all of that applies to the iPod Touch as well. Safari browser + Wi-Fi + keyboard = web-based enterprise apps courtesy of WebEx and NetSuite (and others). On a glorified MP3 player.

So, progress or headache...?

Some interesting news regarding 3's upcoming tariff structuring - it seems that this time round the tariffs are going to be quite blatantly structured around whether you're getting a free phone or not, and different grades of free phones, at that. In a way, it's the same way things work now, but without the assumption that you're getting that expensive handset for nada.

As Fone Logistics' Julien Parven is quoted as saying: "This is starting to put some value back into the handset. The idea of £300 handsets being given away is ridiculous."

No kidding - as Nokia is so keen to point out with its N95 marketing, the smartphone is not so much a phone anymore, as a mini-computer with phone capabilities built in. Nice idea to be giving those away (it sure made me switch operators when I managed to get my Vario II for next to nothing), but it's clearly a situation that couldn't last forever.