Stephen Nold

How Will Apple iPhone impact Meeting Professionals?
July 6, 2007

On Sunday, my pastor asked a congregation of 3,000 people if anyone had purchased the new Apple iPhone.  One young man with a distinguishable Mohawk haircut raised his hand.  At almost 100 yards away in the balcony, this is the closest I have been to the device.

One of my customers mentioned that he purchased three last week, one for his wife, one for a close friend and one to keep himself at the edge of technology.

It seems that the stories involved with the purchase of the device have been as interesting as the actual usage. 

Overall, from my review of the Technology reviews, I have found three cool aspects of the iPhone

• advanced graphical components of mobile devices with some of the clearest pixels, largest screens and clearest video streaming capabilities
• integrated new technologies including a handset's accelerometer (a fancy word for motion sensor), the iPhone's display orientation will adjust automatically when you flip the iPhone on its side while using the music and video players and the Internet browser
• multitouch technology enhancing device functionality

The greatest criticisms I have heard are:

• lack of tactile feedback on the keypad
• interface and keyboard have a long way to go to achieve greatness
• tedious scrolling through long lists, such as the phone book or music play lists

I am not a great candidate to purchase the iPhone as I just purchased the Treo Palm 755P.   I have considered the Palm OS more intuitive.   However, I am tempted to buy one just for the sizzle effect during presentations and speaking engagements over the next few months.

My conclusion?  Seems that Steve Jobs has again hit a home run with an innovation that has broken the technology mold. 

The impact on our industry?  For personal productivity, it seems well organized and smart for ease of use. Businesses will be troubled by the inability to integrate into email systems.  Suppliers should continue to find new ways to provide access to information from the show or conference floor. 

So which device would I recommend?  My recommendation is dependent upon user needs, so I think the debate of Windows platform versus the Blackberry platform versus the Palm platform just got bigger with the Apple platform. 

Posted by Stephen Nold on July 6, 2007 | Comments (4)