If successful, iPhone could raise the bars

The iPhone won't stop global warming. It won't bring peace to the Middle East. But if it lives up to even a portion of the hype, it does have the potential to change how people interact with their cell phones, computers and each other.

Apple Inc.'s iPhone, combining a mobile phone, iPod and Internet browser into one handheld gadget, could represent the closest consumers have come to carrying their life with them wherever they go.

With their photos, music, videos, friends and news at their fingertips, they won't have to leave any of it behind when they're away from home or the office.

Some already have started to embrace this lifestyle with smart phones such as the Blackberry, but none of the iPhone competitors on the market offer quite as much as Apple is promising. Looking back, the iPhone could mark a tipping point, encouraging the masses to look at their cell phone as more than a cell phone and prompting profound changes in everything from privacy to citizen journalism. It could -- assuming the iPhone succeeds -- help introduce a new age of mobile living.

"The iPhone has the potential to raise the level of technology that each one of us carries every day," said Kevin Almeroth, associate director for UC Santa Barbara's Center for Information Technology and Society.

Though the buzz around the iPhone has been overwhelming, it could be because Apple and its mastermind, CEO Steve Jobs, have been down this road before. In the 1980s, the Cupertino technology company helped pioneer the era of home computers with the simple-to-use Mac. More recently, it helped usher in the digital media age, making music, television shows and movies available on the Web and on a portable player, the stunningly successful iPod.

The iPhone is Jobs' latest gamble. The technology industry has long talked about mobile computing, untethering people from their machines yet allowing them to stay in touch.

But that promise has largely been unfulfilled. Smart phones have come the closest, but even the best of that bunch have offered only limited Web access.

Jobs aims to fulfill that elusive promise in part by incorporating a full Internet browser on the iPhone. "It's like having your whole life in your pocket," Jobs said as he unveiled the iPhone in January. "It's the ultimate digital device."

With its sleek, simple design, the iPhone targets the average Joe and Jane, making smart phones more accessible than before. It took Elisabeth Halvorson, a small business owner in Corte Madera, almost a year to get the hang of using her Blackberry. "My learning curve would be shorter with the iPhone," said Halvorson, who is considering one after her cell phone contract expires next year.

But the iPhone in its current form has its limits. It isn't running on the fastest cell phone network. Its touch screen interface may not be that easy to use. It doesn't have GPS, the mapping technology that gives turn-by-turn directions. It doesn't let users download music and videos wirelessly; they still need to connect to their computer to do that.

Though Apple recently announced extended battery life for the device, some still worry it isn't enough. And at $500 to $600 apiece, plus a two-year contract with AT&T, it isn't cheap.

"That it will dominate the entire space is getting a little ahead of itself," said Adam Sexton, chief marketing officer for Groove Mobile, which manages Sprint's cell phone music downloading service.

Furthermore, not all of Apple's products have hit the mark. Who can forget the much maligned Newton, a personal digital assistant that failed to catch on during the 1990s? It's also still too early to see whether the Apple TV, which transfers a user's iTunes media library to the television, lives up to its goal of connecting the computer to the living room. So far, only a few thousand Apple TVs, which hit stores in March, and similar devices have been sold each month, according to Ross Rubin, an analyst with NPD, a market research firm.

Jobs said he expects to sell 10 million iPhones by next year, taking just 1 percent of the world's cell phone sales. Yet even if it doesn't end up in every consumer's hands, it could drive them to consider other smart phones or take advantage of features already on their cell phones.

And that, in and of itself, would trigger a big change in the world of handheld computing.

Only a small, though increasing, number of consumers makes more than just calls on their cell phones. About 4 percent watched video, and 12 percent listened to music on their cell phones during the first quarter of 2007, according to the research firm Telephia. In March, about 12 percent surfed the Web on their phones, the company said.

That could soon grow and lead to significant changes. The increased use of handheld Internet devices could, for instance, further the citizen journalism and self-broadcasting movement with more people not only able to take photos and videos with their phones, but also post them right away on the Internet.

Imagine if even more people had the ability to publish photos and videos from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina or the recent shooting at Virginia Tech. "Now you start to have a platform to do more than just talk or buy music," Almeroth said. "There is all sorts of sharing that could happen."

Activists already have used cell phones to mobilize around a cause, such as sending text messages to rally supporters. But they could do even more with tools such as the iPhone, said Howard Rheingold, author of "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution" and a professor at Stanford University.

"Those are hints to what people are going to do," he said. "But in what way will they band together to do things they haven't done before? That's the million-dollar question."

But at the same time that instant connection could generate greater privacy concerns. Camera phones already have caused problems, from Peeping Toms snapping pictures in dressing rooms to embarrassing incidents caught on camera.

The "widespread deployment of these devices means all the privacy concerns we've had are exacerbated," said Almeroth.

Many mobile applications already allow people to record and upload videos to YouTube, Flickr and other photo- and video-sharing sites. A partnership between the San Francisco Internet company Six Apart and Nokia lets bloggers send photos and videos to their sites directly from their phones.

It all taps into a phenomenon already thriving on the Internet known as Web 2.0. People like to see what their friends are doing, from keeping track of their friends' status and moods on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to trying out the music their friends are listening to on sites such as iLike and Last.fm, said Martin Stiksel, co-founder of Last.fm.

Young people are "constantly waiting for their friends to send them new links, new photos. It's a new sort of entertainment," he said. Now smart phones are offering "a great opportunity to capture what happens not only in the office and living room, but also in the park or walking down the street or sitting on the bus."

Much of that enthusiasm is being channeled into the iPhone, with software developers already rolling out new, iPhone-ready applications. Digg, a user-edited news site in San Francisco, has already customized an application. Developers also have created programs for people to instant message, make travel arrangements, find the best gas prices, compare prices online as they're shopping and make to-do lists on the iPhone.

"There's a lot of excitement around the basic technology that Apple is embedding in the phone," said Chris Messina, a Web 2.0 entrepreneur who is helping to organize an iPhone developers camp, iPhoneDevCamp, next month. "It's the first time we've had a full-powered Web browser that does everything your desktop Web browser does."

Of course, none of this is new. But Jobs has a knack for tapping into a growing trend at the right time. "Let's see if they can do it again," Stiksel said. "The jury is still out."