PITY us poor mobile-phone users in America. While the rest of the world enjoys network speeds that let people watch television on the move, surf the mobile web in its living glory, download videos in a trice, or exchange video messages with one another, we celebrate Apple's launch of its iPhone 3G today as if were some great leap for mankind.

Not to belittle Apple's heroic efforts. The updated smartphone is a considerable improvement over its predecessor. As its name implies, it can now use the third-generation (3G) mobile networks that have become the norm around the world. It is also much cheaper to buy, if not to own.

AFP

When introduced a year ago, the first iPhone was stuck in the 2.5G slow lane with a technology called EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution). This offered download speeds little better than the dial-up connections computer users were lumbered with a decade ago. The problem then was that the iPhone's carrier in America, AT&T, hadn't built anywhere near enough 3G transmission towers to provide a reliable high-speed network.

That's changed over the past year. Now EDGE's successor, a 3G-wireless technology called HSDPA (High-Speed Download Packet Access), provides transmission rates of 400 to 700 kilobits per second.

Speed freaks moan that's still only half as fast as typical broadband connections used in the home. For sure, it's nowhere near brisk enough to beam seamless video to a mobile phone without hiccups. Hence the 3.5G networks rolled out over the past few years by mobile carriers elsewhere in the world, and the trend to even faster 4G services, capable of download speeds of 20 megabits per second or more.

Even so, your correspondent still believes—as he suggested earlier this summer (see article)—that by doubling the speed and halving the price, as well as adding a heap of new features, Apple could still make the iPhone appeal not only to the fashionistas and faithful, but also to the rest of us who want a “converged” mobile device we can take anywhere and use to do practically anything.

Apart from its superb screen and intuitive interface, Apple iPhone has matured a good deal over the past year. Some of its new grown-up features will make it a whole lot more attractive to business users.

One of the most important is Apple's deal with Microsoft to use the latter's ActiveSync and Exchange technology. That will allow the iPhone to work with Microsoft Outlook and receive “pushed” e-mail, contacts and calendars, just like a BlackBerry.

Also, the new iPhone should now run Cisco's VPN (Virtual Private Network)—the gold standard for encrypted access to corporate networks. Together, such features could help make the iPhone a force to be reckoned with in the business world.

But before that can happen, work needs to be done to make the iPhone secure and robust enough to quell concerns of corporate IT departments. There's also the problem of the iPhone's built-in battery, which can't be swapped without a trip to the factory. Many business travellers carry a fully-charged spare for the moment their phone runs out of juice.

Bizarrely, in terms of basic business tools, the iPhone still lacks a simple way of cutting-and-pasting chunks of data from one software application to another. Road warriors spend much of their time clipping snippets from downloaded company reports and spreadsheets to e-mail to colleagues and clients—a task that is all but impossible for iPhone users.

Meanwhile, AT&T has been coy about whether it will allow the new iPhone to be used as an “untethered” 3G modem. Such a feature would save businesses considerable sums by obviating the need for separate 3G mobile modem cards for popping into employees laptops when they are away from WiFi hotspots.

While IT managers are understandably leery about recommending the iPhone for company employees, individual owners are going to be sneaking their prized possession into the office to access e-mail and corporate information. Bosses, too, who become enamoured of the iPhone will be insisting the firm support it. Against their better judgment, many IT managers will doubtless comply.

No question, Apple's innovative design has sent a wake-up call to smartphone makers everywhere. From tiny Palm, the struggling smartphone pioneer, to Research In Motion (RIM), the BlackBerry manufacturer, and the dozen or so handset makers who build smartphones based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile, as well as the 800-pound gorilla of the business, Nokia—all have been forced to react to the iPhone's touch screen, intuitive software and iconic appeal, not to mention its rapid penetration of the market.

Apple has sold more than 5m iPhones over the past year. Practically all have been bought by individuals at their own expense, rather than their employers'. The iPhone now accounts for 19% of the smartphone market in the United States. That's ahead of Palm's 13%, but still well behind RIM's 45%.

Over the past few months, competing 3G smartphones with touch screens and a host of features have been coming thick and fast. Sprint has started to offer Samsung's Instinct, which seeks to trump the iPhone with a higher download speed, better video, picture messaging, navigation and applications, plus a battery that can be removed.

Verizon has unleashed two touch-screen 3G smartphones recently that match the new iPhone in speed and visual impact. The Voyager from LG in South Korea is a clamshell that opens to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. The Dare, also from LG, is a stylish iPhone lookalike that likewise uses a virtual keyboard on its screen. Both have been designed to use Verizon's fast EV-DO (Evolution-Date Optimised) network capable of speeds in excess of 2.4 megabits per second.

Palm has been staging a comeback with its Centro, a trim little 3G phone and e-mail device aimed squarely at consumers. The Centro costs half as much as even the latest iPhone and is selling briskly.

Meanwhile, to defend its home turf, RIM recently announced an iPhone killer called BlackBerry Bold. This has the Canadian maker's classic keyboard and trackball, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS navigation. But it also has a fast processor, a brilliant screen plus four separate radios for tapping the vast majority of 2G, 3G and 3.5G networks around the world.

RIM has clearly learned a lot from its recent foray into the consumer side of the business, with its BlackBerry Pearl and Curve models. Its 16m base of corporate users includes some 60% new subscribers.

Clearly, the BlackBerry Bold raises the game for corporate users everywhere. But perhaps more importantly, it also represents RIM's most determined effort yet to show consumers that a real smartphone is more than just a pretty face.

Waiting in the wings are any number of open-source smartphones based on the nifty Linux operating system. Apple will need to pull out all the stops if the iPhone is not to be swept aside by the flood of do-it-all smartphones heading for American shores.