So after all the hype the iPhone was ‘launched’ by Apple a few days ago but won’t see an actual release until June in the USA. I stayed up to watch the Keynote speech by Steve Jobs and as soon as he began discussing input methods I became extremely interested. Aside from the phone not supporting 3G or HSDPA (significant omissions) or posessing a decent camera I wondered how on earth the user would input data rather than simply search for it as demonstrated many times by Jobs during his Keynote.

The answer was nowhere near as revolutionary as I had hoped but simply a ‘soft’ Qwerty keypad that is displayed as and when necessary. In short this seemed awkward to use and my heart gradually sank as I realised that whilst very ‘cool’ Apple’s iPhone also lacks many of the wonderful things I love about my Symbian / Nokia smartphones of today. On this note I firmly believe that the Symbian OS operates the best smartphone platform right now – look at the forthcoming Nokia N95 and you’ll find a plethora of connectivity options (including high speed data), a great email client capable of sending and receiving attachments (including opening of Office documents), built in Satellite Navigation / GPS, a superb five megapixel camera and a keypad to operate the device. Also worthy of note is the ever increasing third party application and software library for the Symbian platform offerring items such as Instant Messaging (IM+ being my app of choice here), ftp clients, photo editing software, flickr uploading and many many more including games or music players.

Jobs stated that the iPhone’s trimmed down version of OS X will be closed to developers – i.e. Apple will be providing the software. What baffled me was the lack of any IM client on the device which means that support for AOL, AIM, MSN clients looks doubtful in the iPhone.

There are many positives, all mainly very ‘Applesque’. The UI looks gorgeous, the animation of menus is superb and the general look and feel of using the iPhone seems typically Apple. The mini Safari browser looked impressive and seemed to render pages well but again Nokia have already implemented Safari technology in their superb browser for their Symbian smartphones.

I remain confused with Apple’s entry into the Cellphone market. However if Apple perhaps develop a way for users to load in applications easily to the phone and open the door to developers then the iPhone may very well become a huge success. So far other manufacturers have failed to offer anything compelling in terms of cohesive application purchasing program – it has been left to third parties to push this.

I can’t wait to see the iPhone but also can’t wait to own a Nokia N95. Only time will tell if Apple’s judgement is as lucky this time as it was with the iPod.