Labor & Employment Law

Why The iPhone Won't Control The World

By Dobin & Jenks

I just read another article about how Apple is going to take over the business desktop. Maybe I'm just getting old and surly, but I'm not convinced it's an enterprise device. Here's why.

1) The iPhone keyboard sucks. That's the only word for it. If you like guessing where on the touchscreen you have to put your finger to press the letter "k", then enjoy. Me, I like a keyboard that gives me a "k" when I hit a "k".

2) The iPhone is fragile. How many manufacturers have come out with skins, condoms, buffers, and other devices to prevent your pretty little iPhone from suffering from the ravages of gravity and a pavement parking lot? Now, see how many you can find for a Blackberry. There's a reason folks. You can drop a Blackberry. Drop an iPhone and it will make a nice paperweight for your desk. (I can hear it now "That one I dropped on the way to court. That one I dropped on the way to an important meeting. My cat knocked that one off the counter.")

3) The iPhone is a phone, not an email device. See remarks re: keyboard above. Business users want email first and a pretty phone second. If they wanted a pretty phone all the time, they'd carry a RAZR. (Which I do, but not just because it's pretty).

4) The mirror slick exterior surface. What genius came up with that? Oh yeah, the people whose friends are selling the skins, condoms and other things to wrap around the pretty piece of artwork. It was really stupid to take a device that doesn't like to be dropped and wrap it in something that makes ice look like an OSHA-complaint stair tread.

Yes, my kids want iPhones. And it sure is purty. But give me a break. A business device? No way.

That's the extraordinarily crotchety view from The Law Planet - Jupiter, Florida.

Full post as published by The Law Planet Blog on March 21, 2008 (boomark / email).