Why there's no iPhone and why Nokia hasn't succeeded in US

David Pogue writes in his New York Times blog about why he thinks there will never be an iPhone.
His point is that the carriers (aka. operators) have so much power and want to influence every step in the product development of mobile phones. And that Apple doesn't want to give "veto power to ANYONE over its software design". He tells about his friends' - who've worked in the Treo development - experiences: "the carriers (Verizon, Cingular, etc.) have veto power over EVERY move you make. You have to fight, -- refine, -- repeat…all in hopes that -- (they will) -- stock your phone."

I think David has a very good point. It seems to me that Apple and Nokia have had the same approach to making their devices in at least one way. They've both wanted to keep control in their product development. This might be partially the reason that Nokia has such a lousy market share in the US compared to other market areas.

This might even partially explain the 'design problem' that Nokia has had especially in the US. The carriers' influence is quite monopolistic in practice and they can influence the trends and what people 'want' very strongly.

I'm pretty sure that if the carries didn't have such a strong influence, ie. if there weren't subsidies for buying phones, Nokia - whose phones are just so much better than Motorola's - would have a larger market share - and, who knows, maybe there'd be an iPhone on the market, too.

E-series Raves & A Good Review of the E-series Software

Having used the Nokia E70 for a while I've really fallen for this form factor and package of features combining a 'normal phone' with:
* (rigid!) full-sized querty keyboard,
* excellent screen,
* good camera (2Mpix, minimum for photo-scanning letter-sized documents),
* good music player is an excellent base.
Not to mention
* 3G, Wifi (and bluetooth and infrared, too), VoIP, and GPS capability,
* hot-swappable memory card (support for 2GB cards),
* email client (with POP3, IMAP4 and SMTP),
and last but not least
* excellent package of business software which include
- numerous synchronizing solutions (Blackberry, ActiveSync, SyncML, etc) and
- Office document viewing and editing tools, too.

Of the last mentioned, the E-series email and synchronization solutions & Office documents viewing and editing features that interest the business users Mobile-review.com has just published an excellent review of features.

The conlusion of the review:
"... not so long ago large corporations and medium-scale business had been considered to be Window Mobile’s and RIM’s domains, with the advent of Eseries the balance of forced significantly changed, to say the least. Even though the real confrontation is yet to emerge, Eseries smartphones already have what it takes to hold an upper hand there – VoIP, powerful set of office tools and customizable mail client."

S60Tips.com » Transferring Contacts Between Phones

Here's an excellent tip at the S60tips.com for S60Tips.com » Transferring Contacts Between Phones. The key idea is to export all contacts to memory card and then import them into the new phone. Plain and simple, and the export uses vCard files so you can export to other devices or applications as well!