So, practical or pointless? Allow me to cut through the thicket for you.

A few years ago someone who wanted to make a lot of money decided that ‘convergence’ was a very fun word. Fast forward down the line and we have internet fridges, talking toilets, DVD playing games consoles and phones that can play music, go online, play films and (thankfully) still make calls.

Convergence is the key to the technology market right now with companies seemingly going into battle with each other to see how much they can fit into one device. In our slightly idealised lives we all want to be a bit minimalist, clutter free and cool. We don’t want electronic boxes all over the place (apparently), so the solution is to bung everything into one.

Naturally, when this was advertised and chucked down the throats of the poor consumer we all jumped on the bandwagon like a bunch of suckers. Now everything electronic seems to be able to do at least one other things aside from its primary function. The hand-held market is perhaps the one that has seen the most change. Getting multimedia content into the palm of our hands is an industry that could one day be worth billions and is already garnering a lot of interest in places like Japan and Italy where TV on the go is growing by the day.

Services are being rolled out all over the world and take-up has surprised a lot of tech analysts. But these analysts forget one key thing: everyone loves convergence. Remember, that clever little beggar that wanted to make lots of money years ago? Well, I should think he’s now rolling in his piles of money and giggling with joy. Apple are after the same sort of thing. They’ve seen what they can do with the iPod and now they are looking to do the same thing by adding in some extra letters to the name (and yes, removing a ‘d’) and giving you the ability to make calls.

Enter, stage left, the iPhone.

Some note that this is a bit of a rip-off. You can pick up a Apple iPod 30GB Video/Black (5th Generation) for just over £150 (US$230 or €270) at most good retailers. Compare this to the projected price of US$499 for the 4GB version and US$599 for the 8GB version and you have a rather large price hike. So, are you paying too much for these extra features and can the iPhone be competitive in the market and most importantly to everyone who will buy one or consider buying one, will it be useful? In short: do the ends justify the means?

What you’re getting with the iPhone is a bit of the future right here and right now. The features that the iPhone will house have been around for quite some time now, but they haven’t necessarily seemed all that accessible to the average consumer. They have been the staple diet of the tech world but nobody has had the marketing sense to get them out their to the mass market...yet. The iPhone is going to make convergence cool again, just like the iPod before it and the PlayStation 2 before that.

Or, as Apple so eloquently put it in PR blurb:

Quote:
“It’s similar to what we went through when we introduced the iPod five years ago,” 

says Apple vice president of worldwide iPod marketing Greg Joswiak.

Quote:
“A lot of people compared the original iPod to CD players that cost $49, and asked ‘Why would somebody pay hundreds of dollars for a music player?’ Well, the reality is we are going to sell our hundred millionth iPod this year, and we have never had to price it at $49.” 

Apparently, Joswaik feels the iPod offered great value:

Quote:
“The ideal is that if you provide more value to a customer then you are going to get that customer, but it’s got to be the right value.” 

This is where phone manufacturers are going wrong, surmised Joswiak:

Quote:
“Unfortunately most phones haven’t had much to compete on today other than price.” 

So there you have it, the iPhone is good value according to the guy who marketed the iPod, strange that. The iPhone will provide an accessible, cool and very useable piece of convergence that will allow people to make use of the iTunes interface on the go. By making a complex piece of technology seem familiar and simple Apple are hoping that they can get people to buy into the market by purchasing their product. Nokia, Sony Ericsson and countless other companies have taken the first few steps, but Apple feel that their product can provide the first big leap. Various PDAs and

In my view, the iPhone isn’t overpriced. It is a very daring and exciting piece of technology, and whilst it might have its faults and its inevitable critics, I think it fully justifies the pricepoint that is being mooted. The potential that a piece of kit like the iPhone has is huge. With TV on-the-go most certainly on the rise and multimedia content becoming more and more. It gives you the best of an iPod, the best of a portable media player for watching films, TV and video podcasts and it can organise your life and keep you in touch with everyone you need to keep in touch with. If you’re going to use it day in day out and it is going to becoming an essential part of your inter-connected, multimedia lifestyle, then it is utterly essential. If you think it ‘sounds cool’, you might want to think about splashing your hard earned cash.

At the end of the day, the iPhone is going to be useful to those who will use its features. With the market for Blackberries constantly on the rise and the market for iPods continually growing, I think the product that Apple are offering will be picked up and valued by a wide range of people. It converges together the practical and the fashionable, which is a very difficult thing to do. It might be a big investment, but if you’re going to use it the iPhone is excellent value and a sound investment that you’ll find yourself turning to throughout the day for entertainment, information and more besides.