14. Is The IPhone Ready For Business? Continued

Also of great importance, both services push email and other data to remote clients. The clients don't need to regularly check for email, etc. The services notify a client that new data are available and it is downloaded to the client as time and conditions permit. Apple's POP and IMAP services, true to specs for both protocols, require that a client check for email, except with Yahoo Mail. (See the section above.)

As Jobs has noted, this is not an "if", but a "when". I expect we will see ActiveSync mated with the iPhone before the end of the year; sooner if the business and technical details can be worked out quickly. Let's just hope that competitive issues don't get in the way of iPhone users getting solid wireless email sync services.

A company named Visto announced this week that its mobile email service will support Exchange and Domino on iPhone. Using IMAP, it will include push email and other wireless data synchronization. A product for iPhone is expected in the third quarter.

Finally, the iPhone's slick design and iPod functionality just might make some businesses shy away from the device. Some companies pride themselves on being sturdy, old mainstays that avoid the trendy. Forget that beautiful design. And, with the wealth of content available for iPods, some managers may fear that their employees will waste too much time during business hours fiddling with music and videos. To hide its fabulous design, I guess you could put the iPhone in a sock or a fully enclosed case. However, as far as I know, there's no way to disable iPhone iPod capabilities.

Conclusions

Apple's new iPhone is beautifully designed inside and out. The case and display are generally scratchproof, though the display does love to pull greasy from your fingers. With its large display and carefully thought out finger activated graphical user interface, it is generally a pleasure to use. The graphical keyboard takes some getting used to, but even it works well when you know a few secrets.

The iPhone is blessed with a range of great features from the 4 or 8 GB of memory available to all applications to its high quality wide display to its good to very good sound. EDGE wide area networking is slow, but tolerable and it would be nice if the battery and SIM card were easily accessible, but we'll figure out how to get to them.

Non-business users will be quite happy with the iPhone's low cost data transfer options and personal information management functionality. Businesses, on the other hand, will wait for better security and wireless personal information management capabilities, which we should see soon.

The iPhone is an iconic, but like the iPod, highly accessible mobile information and entertainment device. It proves that there is rarely anything truly new under the sun, but that a creative company can bring together existing technologies into a product that changes the landscape in its market.

If you haven't already seen some of Ben Meyer's early experiences with the iPhone check out this video.

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