“Well worth the wait” – The Guardian headline
“Ah, but mine can do this! will soon be heard in every cafe and bar.” Stephen Fry is back with an extended review of the iPhone 3G and its downloadable apps
I’m so happy to be back. My thanks to all those who were kind enough to be in touch to say that you missed me. You were well served by my distnguished stand-ins, however, and thanks go to them, too, for keeping Dork Talk alive. But let’s get straight to business: an extra-long column for openers, for this month sees another Apple launch.
A happy customer at the Apple store in London (Photograph: Sang Tan/AP)
Whatever one’s view of Apple as a manufacturer of digital equipment, as an author of operating systems and designer of software, as a multinational corporation, as a lifestyle statement or as a quasi-religious cult, it remains a matter of ineluctable fact that the introduction of the iPhone just over a year ago changed the smartphone market for ever. An incredible three-quarters of all mobile web browsing is now done on the iPhone, despite its market share being far smaller than that of either Windows Mobile, BlackBerry/Java or Nokia/Symbian devices. iPhone users report an unprecedented level of customer satisfaction (between 82% and 90%, compared with the second placed BlackBerry at 50%). This is not a surprise to anyone who has lived with an iPhone for even a short while, and even less of a surprise to anyone who has also had to work with a WinMob phone.
