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12th November 2007

Free iPhone content incoming

Fire up your Jesus phone this Friday and hop onto Jamster for gratis mobile gubbins.

The purveyors of infuriating ringtones, Jamster, are weighing in on the iPhone action, with UK punters getting access to stacks of free content when the blower rears its head here this Friday.

Designed specifically for those who are planning on unburdening themselves of £269 tomorrow, a section of the Jamster site will let users check out a raft of music videos, movie clips and scenes from 24.

Add to that games including Bejewled and Black Jack and you can at least breathe a little easier for letting Apple trouser yet more of your hard earned.

Sadly, the iPhone's unfriendly ringtone policy means no Crazy Frog noises here. Now, you decide if that's a good thing.






11th November 2007

It's stunning, powerful and elegant... so set the iPhone free

The Apple iPhone arrived in the UK on Friday and evoked a predictable spectrum of responses - from ecstatic boosterism to technophobic spluttering. The Daily Mail said Carphone Warehouse expected to sell 10,000 on the first day, which may or may not be connected with the fact that Carphone CEO Charles Dunstone sits on the board of the Mail's holding company. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if Carphone achieved its target, because no phone in history has had so much advance publicity. But why? It's only a phone, isn't it?

Yes and no. Yes in the sense that it enables its user to make voice calls, like any other mobile phone. No, in the sense that it's the most powerful computer ever shoehorned into such a small and elegant package. All mobile phones are small computers, but most run Mickey Mouse operating systems tailored to the limited requirements of a phone. The significant thing about the iPhone is that it runs a version of Unix - Berkeley Software Distribution or BSD, a proper operating system that powers not only Apple's personal computers, but also industrial-strength servers across the world. If you're a techie, you can log into the iPhone using a terminal, and when you do, you see a proper Unix machine. And at that point you begin to see the device in a new light. You also begin to ask some hard questions about the mobile phone business. And about Apple.

Let's start with Apple. Proud owners of its powerful new micro-computers can use them only on a single network - O2. Anyone who hacks an iPhone to liberate it from that stranglehold is likely to find the device disabled ('bricked' is the colourful term) the next time they synchronise it with their PC. This is because Apple has a deal with O2 that ensures a tidy payment (the US equivalent is rumoured to be $11 a month) for every iPhone registered with it. So Apple has deliberately crippled the iPhone to ensure a cosy revenue stream, and the hapless consumer - who has paid £269 plus an 18-month contract - is barred from harnessing its full potential.

It gets worse. The iPhone has a wonderful wi-fi system, which sniffs out wireless networks wherever it goes, and effortlessly hooks up with them. Purchase of an iPhone gives users automatic access to the thousands of wi-fi points run across the country by a company called The Cloud. Given that Skype internet telephony software runs on Apple Macs, there's no reason why the iPhone can't be used to make Skype (or other VoIP) calls whenever it's in range. But again, the device has been crippled to preclude this - because the last thing O2 wants is customers using their mobiles to make free internet calls.

Until now, phones have been relatively primitive devices, so the corrupt absurdity of the closed systems operated by networks has not been obvious to most. The arrival of the iPhone lays it bare. Having an iPhone locked to a network which doesn't provide 3G connectivity, and is unable to make VoIP calls despite having good wireless networking built in, is like buying a Ferrari and finding that the only thing you can do with it is power your lawnmower. It's nuts - and our regulators have allowed it to happen.

In fact, it's worse than nuts. Writing in the Wall Street Journal recently, veteran commentator Walt Mossberg described the mobile networks as the last vestiges of the Soviet industrial model. 'Like the old bureaucracies of communism,' he wrote, 'they sit athwart the market, breaking the link between the producers of goods and services and the people who use them. To some extent, they try to replace the market system and, like the real Soviet ministries, they are a lousy substitute. They decide what phones can be used on their networks and what software and services can be offered on those phones. They require the hardware and software makers to tailor their products to meet the carriers' specifications, not just so they work properly, but so they promote the carriers' brands and their various add-on services.'

Mobile networks shouldn't be allowed to pick and choose what phones run on their systems, or what software and services run on those phones. What we need, as Mossberg argues, is a mobile device ecosystem that mirrors the PC/internet one - where purchase of network capacity is separate from purchase of the hardware and software used on it. Otherwise we'll wind up with Ferrari-powered lawnmowers for the foreseeable future.

Mossberg's right. Ofcom, are you listening?

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