March 9, 1998
Internet phones should be consumer access device of choice
By Bob O'Donnell
In case you hadn't noticed, the Internet has gone mainstream. Now even the average
person is starting to want to find out what this "Internet thing" is all about.
As a result of this interest, the market for consumer-oriented Web access devices is
getting a lot of attention and lots of consumer-oriented products are being developed and
introduced. To many in the high-tech industry, this is the culmination of the widely
predicted "convergence" of consumer electronics and computers.
To date, most of the attention has focused on TV-based solutions, such as the WebTV
device, which let you view Internet content on your television. Frankly, I've never
understood the appeal of TV-based devices because television and the Web are a mismatch.
Watching television is a passive experience that you do from a distance, whereas finding
information on the Internet is a very active experience that you typically do up close.
The Web's content simply does not lend itself to a passive experience.
In my opinion, a much better matchup exists between the telephone and the Web. Using a
telephone is an active, up-close experience, and the telephone is commonly used to find
information anyway. So, I've been following the developments of Internet-enabled phones
with interest. One of the first to be announced was the Navitel TouchPhone, which was to
be a Windows CE-based telephone -- that is, until Microsoft bought the company and killed
the product (but kept its software work).
Several other companies have since announced similar types of products, but the first
one to actually reach the market is the iPhone
from Cidco, which started shipping about a month ago. The $479 iPhone, which is currently
only available from Cidco's Web site, is a combination smart phone and Internet access
device in one. With the help of its built-in, slide out keyboard, it supports sending and
receiving e-mail to any POP3-compliant account (but not AOL or any corporate e-mail
systems behind firewalls), as well as browsing the Web, complete with graphics.
The most important feature of the phone is its 7.4-inch, 640 x 480, backlit,
16-grayscale, touchscreen display, which is used to navigate the phone's features and to
browse the Web. Internally it runs an OS and browser designed by InfoGear that supports the older HTML 3.2 standard,
but not frames, Java, JavaScript, RealAudio or other plug-ins. At least, not yet, says the
company. Updates for frames and JavaScript (and possibly others) are coming.
For Web access, the product integrates a 14.4Kbps modem, which seems inexcusably slow,
but because of a unique client-server architecture, the company claims performance is more
akin to a 28.8Kbps modem (which still isn't fast enough in my opinion). Essentially what
the iPhone does is connects to special proxy servers that strip the colors from incoming
web page graphics, and compress the graphics and HTML to provide faster throughput.
My personal experience showed that the performance was actually reasonable and
certainly much better than a normal 14.4Kbps modem. Performance issues aside, the product
is easier to set up and use than WebTV (which, admittedly, is pretty easy) and, as my gut
instincts told me it would be, a more intuitive, more natural experience. In addition to
the fact that WebTV really requires a large screen (31" or better) to be readable,
the process of reading information from your couch is just plain awkward. Looking up local
film times, restaurant reviews, TV listings, breaking news or any of a host of other
activities via your phone, on the other hand, really makes sense and seems like a natural
extension of your phone.
The iPhone is certainly not the final statement in consumer-oriented Web access tools.
I think it's going to take a color screen, faster modem and lower prices for these things
to really take off. But I do think it's an important step in the right direction. The
notion of a simple, purpose-specific device that requires absolutely no effort on the
user's part to set up or maintain is going to be an increasingly important part of the
high-tech industry landscape -- particularly devices that logically extend activities
we're already used to.
Stand-alone personal computers will, of course, still command the primary role in the
world of Internet access. But I expect we'll all soon have multiple ways to get to the
Internet from our homes and businesses.
Copyright 1998, by InfoWorld Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of IDG Communications,
Inc. Reprinted from InfoWorld, 155 Bovet Road, San
Mateo, CA 94402. Further reproduction is prohibited.
