CES Trend #6: The rush to render the iPhone obsolete

No list of trends would be complete without a mention of Apple's iPhone, a device that many handset manufacturers will be looking to beat in 2008 in order to attract a consumer that is ever more interested in advanced wireless services. Many of those devices will debut at CES next week.

Since its launch in June of last year, iPhone sales have nearly topped 2 million. While the closed nature of Apple's business model has kept the device out of the hands of many consumers, the iPhone no doubt has sparked a revolution in the entire mobile phone industry.

Manufacturers have been quick to jump on the bandwagon and add devices to their portfolios that mimic the most sought-after features of the iPhone. Even software developers have seized opportunities that the phone's release have created.

This rush of competition will keep Apple on its toes in 2008, in a race to stay one step ahead of the industry which is hungry for a piece of the iPhone pie. It is this high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse among mobile vendors that will likely be one of the bigger stories coming out of CES this year and beyond.

Touch-screen technology

Perhaps the easiest place for these manufacturers to start would be mimicking the touch-screen functionality that the iPhone provides. While touch screens have now been available on phones for several years thanks to devices like Palm's Treo, Apple has put this functionality in the hand of general consumers, not just business users.

Furthermore, the Cupertino company eliminated the need for a stylus which was commonplace among touch-screen phones previously due to their smaller screens. Apple also made the touch-screen technology a larger part of its overall user interface design through the inclusion of finger "gestures" to navigate through the device.

The first device to follow the iPhone with similar technology was the Touch from Taiwanese manufacturer HTC. Like the iPhone, the Touch lacks any kind of physical keyboard, and uses a similar UI concept called "TouchFLO" that requires similar finger gestures for navigation purposes.

HTC quickly found there was a market for such a device, with the Touch selling 800,000 units in a matter of three months through October. The company has since expanded the line with two additional models, the Dual Touch that combines the interface with a slide-out keypad, and the recently released Cruise, which integrates GPS functionality.

Other finger-based touch devices have come along since then: Verizon has recently begun a heavy push of the Venus by LG. More touch-based phones are expected to be introduced at CES, as manufacturers attempt to improve on Apple's innovative design to win over consumers eager for the latest technology.

Visual Voicemail

Many moons ago, voicemail was one of those bonus features that consumers were expected to pay for separately. Those times have long since passed, and voicemail is now a basic feature that users have come to expect for free.

Thus, voicemail technology has largely taken a backseat in many carriers' list of priorities, and has seen little in the way of innovation since it became commonplace over a decade ago. Apple has finally changed that with the iPhone.

Its Visual Voicemail functionality became a hallmark of the iPhone, and is even cited by the Cupertino company as one of the primary reasons why it had to select a specific carrier -- in the United States, AT&T Wireless -- in order to launch the device.

Instead of the standard way of checking one's messages by calling a number and sitting through numerous spoken prompts, Visual Voicemail works more like e-mail. It allows the user to see in a single glance who has called them, and selectively listen to and delete voicemails without having to play them in any specific order.

Due to the apparent technology hurdles, it could be a while before any kind of similar functionality makes it to other phones or wireless carriers. The closest anyone has come so far is Callwave, and even there it requires the individual to be using his or her computer and not a mobile phone.

It will be interesting to watch at CES whether anyone attempts to expand the concept of Visual Voicemail to devices beyond the iPhone.

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