Cell phones forum: Poll: Time naming the iPhone "Invention of the year"

Apple jumped over the competition and made a flexible and cool contact management, culturally relevant portable device that other cell phone manufactuirers will be chasing for the next 2-3 years. Also, the contract with AT&T while being controversial is a genius strategic move that will boost their net worth and is something only Apple could pull off. They are the #1 tech brand with the kids today which means long term profitibality is assured.

slant675,

This is the different between lover and hater and in-between. They see things different. Even **** smells good. I love this world.

The iPhone takes a whole new approach to the cell phone market. It's not just the device but new way of offering a complete package of features geared toward the user. Visual voicemail is an excellent example. It required collaboration between AT&T and Apple and investment from both companies. When the list price of plans was an object the collaboration paid off again by making voice and data package pricing attractive. We will see other, heritage, cell phone manufactures and providers taking this approach. The iPhone is more than a device and it has changed the industry!

...Now that was funny

I agree. Let's see...iPhones can make phone calls, text message, take pictures, capture/play videos, upload songs, be used as an MP3 player, has Internet access, GPS, Bluetooth wireless and email...but so does my Motorola RAZR. In fact, I was watching TV on it when Steve Jobs made his big introduction speech and remember thinking then "How is this big news when everything he's gushing about is in my skinny pink phone right now???"

Now that it's here, I haven't changed my mind. All that's really different is that it does MOST of what my phone does bigger and or better. There's a touchscreen instead of a keypad, the Internet is easier to browse, it can be flipped to view in widescreen and it's more like an iPod than V-cast is on my phone.

What it doesn't do better, IMHO, is make phone calls because to use the phone feature, iPhone users must subscibe to ATT wireless. Contrary to ATT's claim of "more bars in more places," T-Mobile and Verizon have consistently been named as the carriers with the best reception in more places. AT&T Wireless is usually at the bottom and has been ranked worst or second-worst in over a dozen major metropolitan areas. Being tied to ATT is likely another reason it isn't being used around the world!

An invention is something really new like the iPod. The iPhone is little more than a sexed-up smart phone with crappy reception.

It doesn't matter if the phone or the company providing the line for the phone is at fault. It still gets bad reception. wildcatt simply didn't care to reiterate once more what s/he had said previously.

never mind third world countries... the iphone is not available in canada yet.

An innovation. Just as the Japanese had done for decades, Apple has taken the best technologies offered over multiple devices, and has incorporated these into a single device operating on an open Operating system, Linux.

U r exactly correct. The word is INNOVATION!!! Big difference between invention and innovation. If they had said the innovation of the year then I might agree, but ????? i would have to question that 2 ?????? The Jury is still out!!!

I got excited when I saw this post because it's the only one on the 6 pages I've read that mentioned some other product that was felt to be more deserving of the award. Those are nice little miniature PCs mentioned here but none would be my first choice.

Every few years a REAL invention comes along. For instance, the IC as we know it today was made possible when Fairchild's Dr. Hoerni invented the Planar Process. Virtually every new technological innovation since has used Planar Process manufactured ICs as the fundamental building blocks. Hard drives, LCD screens, CDs, and Digital Cameras are other important inventions used in today's wonder products. But in our current environment, most of what we call inventions are simply evolutionary products. Probably the best example of this is what many consider to be the most important invention to come along in years, IBM's Personal Computer, or PC. But think about it, the PC was simply an evolutionary product, a computer made small. It was the packaging that made it revolutionary. Well .. It's the packaging that makes Apple's iPhone revolutionary in today's environment. For that reason I would definitely pick the iPhone as invention of the year in the same manner in which I would pick IBM's PC the invention of the year for 1981.

Before the IBM PC came along there were small inexpensive computers made by Altair, Apple, Workslate, Commodore, Texas Instruments, Sinclair, and etc. I owned three of these. Even IBM had its 5100 which looked much like its later PC but cost about $9k. Then IBM decided on an operating system (DOS) that had been developed based on Gary Kindall's CP/M > Tim Patterson's QDOS > Gates' MS-DOS (purchased from Tim Patterson for $50,000) then licensed as MS-DOS. Intel's 8086 was set up as the PC's heart. IBM then gathered together a group of top designers who put together this wonder of a machine. The final genius on the part of IBM was to release its design for use by anyone who wanted to clone it. I bought some of those first IBM XT PCs for course developers in my department (my company authorized them because they were IBMs and would thus be well supported in years to come). Shortly thereafter I bought a clone of an IBM AT PC (AT had a hard drive) PC for home use. If you think about it, it was those clones that rapidly turned IBMs PC design into that almost instant international sensation.

Again, IBM's PC was simply a beautifully configured combination of stuff that had been invented or developed elsewhere. Time gave IBM its well deserved Invention of the Year award in the early '80s, and has now selected Apple's iPhone, another beautifully configured combination of stuff that for the most part had been invented elsewhere, for this year's Invention of the Year. I certainly can't think of any other product that has come forth that would be more deserving.

All of the UMPC's are sadly just like the first batch, products with no purpose. The Samsung sph p9200 is the first pocket size UMPC that has a touch type keyboard so you can actually do computer work on it,what a ground breaking idea? The other computer designers need to learn what consumers want and it is not a pen input only nor a thumb input geeky device.

I will vote for the "best marketing campaign of the year".

As for product, I still trust 10 time more Nokia, which
has 15 years of experience, the BEST operating system
(Symbian), and the BEST end-user APIs (se all the SDKs and
plug-ins you can get).

What is meanings of Invention?

"The act of finding out or inventing; contrivance or construction of that which has not before existed" - (My Pocket Oxford Dictionary).

Iphone is not the first generation of PDA-Smartphone-Touch Screen at all. So, the Time uses the term "Invention" has been just for Marketing Lobby.

People may improve or innovate a car from Manual to Automatic, however it was called "Invention".

Anyway, for me, Time is so crap for using that word.

Here I can suggest some vocabularies for them (Time + Apple).

"The Revolution of the Year"
"The Most Hopefulness of the Year"
"The Most Curious Cellular of the Year"

I am pretty sure that Apple has lobbied Time for this deputing title.

James

All those criticizing the iPhone because it's not an "invention" point to classic inventors like Bell and Edison. But history shows us that inventions are rarely created out of the blue. Even Bell and Edison based their inventions on existing technologies for the most part. Doesn't make their contributions any less significant. Same with the iPhone. The "invention" part is how it brings together existing technologies in an innovative way to create something entirely new.

I'll agree that it's probably not the most significant invention of the year, which is probably sitting on some inventor's lab table, and we'll only hear about it five years from now. I don't know what other new products Time Magazine was considering, but I think from a consumer standpoint, it's hard to beat the iPhone.