Here come the doppelgangers

Apple's iPhone is all set to take a bite out of the mobile market but will it survive the hype?

Probably the year's most awaited gadget, Apple iPhone made its debut yesterday in the US. The launch has given the competition sleepless nights but has also resulted in delirious activity to launch products that can stand against the iPhone.

Millions of loyal Apple customers have waited with bated breath for the device, which is a cell phone, music player and Internet-access device rolled up in a touch-based buttonless user interface.

Apple is playing selective, according to a report by Merrill Lynch, that calculates Apple to ship close to 4 million iPhones this year and 12 million by 2008. By being selective, Apple has created an eager market willing to lap up any phone that promises to be an 'iPhone lookalike'.

Apple officials asseverate that they will sell 10 million iPhones worldwide by the end of 2008 but according to research firm Gartner, worldwide sales of all mobile phones will reach 1.15 billion in 2007, which means there is plenty of room for iPhone alternatives "" and there are plenty of them.

Leading phone brands including Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, High Tech Corporation (HTC), LG, Sony Ericsson and even the good old BlackBerry, are eventuating phone models that claim to do an iPhone.

But, surprisingly, Apple's rivals in the cell phone business seem just as enthusiastic, at least on the exterior.

Says Peter Chou, CEO of HTC, which has launched Touch, a phone that resonates iPhone's design, "We are not bothered about Apple iPhone's introduction in the mobile market. Users are smart enough to decide whether they want to buy a first generation mobile phone or a device from a company with experience in mobile manufacturing."

HTC Touch, priced at Rs 19,900, competes with the iPhone, which is priced at Rs 21,000 for the 4 GB model and Rs 25,000 for the 8 GB one.

Even if Apple's latest innovation flops for some reason, or stays limited to the high-end corner of the smartphone market, it has already jolted the industry, showing that just the body and outward beauty of the handset counts a lot. One look at LG's Prada and chances are any novice would mistake it for the iPhone. The phone is yet to make an entry into India and is priced on the higher side "" approximately Rs 40,000.

"This is the most anticipated phone since Alexander Graham Bell did his," state industry analysts at JupiterResearch. "Part of it is the fascination with Apple's products and how well they design them, but it is also about how poor the design in cellphone softwares is today and how much time Apple has spent working on this."

Samsung, with its F700, a slim, touch-screen and high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) is also an iPhone killer.

Asim Warsi, marketing head, Samsung says, "We are an established player in the mobile arena. And I don't see how a company can challenge us with a singular product."

The company is already planning to launch close to 10 more phones for the Indian masses across the board, but F700 will still remain at the top of the table.

Nokia, the leader of the pack, is not too way off. Although the Finnish giant is not really emulating the touch-based interface, it seems serious about challenging the iPhone with its rich features.

Nokia N95, one of the more "speedier" handsets yet, is packed with a full-load of pretty nasty features like its fully-integrated global positioning system (GPS) capabilities, a five megapixel camera, HSDPA connection speed and including all the multimedia entertainment support that is preferred by a young, mobile crowd.

While Apple has promised to feature YouTube on its iPhone, Nokia has already announced an agreement with the online video sharing site YouTube that adds to the multimedia capability of N95. If this wasn't enough, Nokia's near future addition to its Nseries, the N99, is a fully loaded model with 16 GB of Flash memory and an additional 4 GB via miniSD, along with WiFi connectivity, GPS, an eight megapixel camera and a 3.2 inch screen, which makes it a formidable adversary for any mobile device.

Sony Ericsson is also planning to battle with feature-rich phones, instead of beautiful looks. Its W880 Walkman phone, a yet to be released slim phone, is possibly iPod's biggest threat.

The phone is bundled with a 1 GB memory stick micro which is currently the hippest way to extend your phone's memory. The iPhone, famously, doesn't have a memory extension option (it comes in fixed memory models of 4 GB and 8 GB) which means all music and videos will have to be saved in its in-built memory.

While the Apple iPod was in many ways a pioneering device in what then was a very immature market both in terms of the technology available and market size, the iPhone is entering an established market, where several players "" ranging from tiny Palm Inc to innovative giant Hewlett-Packard "" are already well established, with lines of technologically sophisticated devices. Let's see if it will emerge as the wireless virtuoso of 2007.