Comparing an OS that is donkey years gone and old to a eh, smartphone device that most of its customers/buyers/crowd barely even knows what the term '3G' is completely useless. May be the author of this article should understand that M$ isn't a hardware company...it's is software while el-jobso on the other hand tries to produce a mixture of both hw and sw and try so hard to make those things aesthetically beautiful.... and since the author also seem to be a bit bias, I'll point out some of the shortcomings of the so called iPhonic device at these stage of innovation a company such as Apple calls itself..:
* no threaded sms??
* Users have reportedly complained that the Mobile Me app doesn't push emails and the likes instantly as Apple [el-jobso] advertised at WWDC or teva that is..
* No gps turn-by-turn direction or not even to mention TTS ability
* Yet, everyone goes around praising el-jobso as the great inventor of the decade and tries to point finger at M$ as if 90% of the world pc aren't running on Windows OS in the first place.. and even now....OR as if the world can do without PCs or Windows OS or as if majority of apps aren't PC based...

If Apple gets all the glory and praise, the few shortcomings I mentioned above are something that most 'smartphones' have these days and most of these dogmatic consumers just go by what they hear on tv '3g, 3g, 3g, 3g, 3g' as if it's the only device to spot a 3g. My Sony Ericsson k610i even has 3g long b4 Apple dreamed of it..

To cut my story, if all the iPhone App store, iPhonic device, all the 3G buzz is enough to induce enough ranting and comparison between M$ OS which is donkey years old to a small smartphone device that is just wakening to the latest technology platform then, the author of this article should carefully rename the title of the article....

Comparing an OS that is donkey years gone and old to a eh, smartphone device that most of its customers/buyers/crowd barely even knows what the term '3G' is completely useless. May be the author of this article should understand that M$ isn't a hardware company...it's is software while el-jobso on the other hand tries to produce a mixture of both hw and sw and try so hard to make those things aesthetically beautiful.... and since the author also seem to be a bit bias, I'll point out some of the shortcomings of the so called iPhonic device at these stage of innovation a company such as Apple calls itself..:
* no threaded sms??
* Users have reportedly complained that the Mobile Me app doesn't push emails and the likes instantly as Apple [el-jobso] advertised at WWDC or teva that is..
* No gps turn-by-turn direction or not even to mention TTS ability
* where are the productivity apps on the App store?
* Yet, everyone goes around praising el-jobso as the great inventor of the decade and tries to point finger at M$ as if 90% of the world pc aren't running on Windows OS in the first place.. and even now....OR as if the world can do without PCs or Windows OS or as if majority of apps aren't PC based...

If Apple gets all the glory and praise, the few shortcomings I mentioned above are something that most 'smartphones' have these days and most of these dogmatic consumers just go by what they hear on tv '3g, 3g, 3g, 3g, 3g' as if it's the only device to spot a 3g. My Sony Ericsson k610i even has 3g long b4 Apple dreamed of it..

To cut my story, if all the iPhone App store, iPhonic device, all the 3G buzz is enough to induce enough ranting and comparison between M$ OS which is donkey years old to a small smartphone device that is just wakening to the latest technology platform then, the author of this article should carefully rename the title of the article....

Jimmy, the author makes it clear in his first statement, this is a defining platform. Perhaps not for the 21st century but at least for the next 10 years.

Windows 95 was a defining platform not because of the hardware it required to run it, but because a lot of great programming tools appeared and therefore the apps that were later developed (visual basic for instance).

Now you a have a mobile device with a great interface, motion sensors, gps, great programming tools to support tons of thousands of NEW applications, not versions 2.1, 3.1 of some old software. We're talking about different apps. The author may be biased, but he's not blind.

Jimmy, you kinda shot yourself in the foot: despite the fact that Windows is on 90% of the world comptuters doesnt mean we would NOT be hamstrung it there was no Windows 95; to paraphrase your comparison: el Jobso had a shipping GUI OS that took Billyboy 10 years to make an commercially-appealing knockoff :)

Having said that, the SMS is threaded (if I understand you correctly) and three of four paths 'push' correctly (admittedly the laggard that syncs on a schedule is data from Mac desktops/laptops->mMe); everything else (iPhonemMe and mMe->Macs) pushes according to Hoyle :)

Jimmy Jones.... all marketing campaigns throughout time are comparable to at least 1 other industry whether its through evolution or revolution.

The same marketing principles that Apple applied to the iPhone worked for them in 1984 when releasing the Mac Plus.

It seems strange to me that you can't seem to see that portable computing is an evolution on from Windows 95. Perhaps you work for Microsoft, the same company who has failed to create a "Windows 2005" that could have created the same buzz and feel good tingles that Windows 95 garnered when it was released 10 years earlier??

Oh come on, Windows '95 might have been commercial success, but it was really a continuation of Microsoft aping Apple (again). When someone said to Guy Kawasaki that Windows '95 is now like a Mac, he replied.

"That's like finding a potato that looks like Jesus and claiming to have witnessed the second coming"

Nothing changes, Microsoft continue copy Apple and others - zune anyone?

The author is correct in seeing the iPhone (hardware, software and App store) as the new platform for wireless computing. Almost everyone in my neighborhood is now buying an iPhone. It is the first smartphone for most of them. It is the first mobile communications and multimedia device that is easy to use for anyone who is not a geek.

Look around you Jimmy, see what people are actually doing. Ask them why they purchased an iPhone. They see opportunities to make their life better. Just like the iPod.

With MobileMe, Apple will be generating recurring annual revenue that will surpass its profits from the iPhone.

A nice fringe benefit for Apple is, that the iPhone will drive Mac hardware sales as well.

There is something almost funny about this article.
Ihe iPhone is a magnificent platform. Its interface is wonderful as well. But when I hear this PC is dead jag, I cant help but howl in laughter.

My question is this: Have you ever tried to live with a smart cell phone or a pda type appliance as your ONLY computing device? See how long it takes you to write and edit any kind of text of any size. You may be able to review your spreadsheets on the iPhone, but lest see you try and try work with them.

The pc is not dead, but then again, I cant carry around my pc in my pocket.

I understand what you're trying to do with this article but geez, comparing Windows 95 to the iPhone is like holding up a new baby in one hand and a turd in the other and declaring the the turd the baby's predecessor.

For those of us old enough to remember dealing with WIndows 95, it was nothing but crap... But the rollout was quite a hoot.

(Lipstick on a pig...)

Has it ever crossed the mind of the author that MAYBE we will have both?

Smart phones are not a replacement for PC's, they are complementary. Instead what I think is that smart phones will pull together certain devices.

For example many people that are looking at the iPhone have said the following:

"You know finally I will not have to lug around my iPod, and phone. I can have both of them together."

The iPhone will cannabilize the sales of the iPod in a major way. Will this improve the bottom line of Apple? No because iPod sales will come to a screeching halt...

The comparison drawn in this article is really weird. Yes, Windows 95 was probably Microsoft's best hype moment, but sheesh. iPhone is looking pretty good and I'm going to get one because I'm just tired of my cell having crap software, but the comparisons are nutso. The iPhone is going to be a sliver of the mobile market for some time, whereas MSFT had a near monopoly on PCs in 1995.

Of course, the real purpose of this article is to get Microsoft into the title and draw traffic here by creating a fanboy fire. Works, I guess, but I have adblock so no money from me.

Christian, that's exactly right, that the iPod sales will die, but obviously Apple is well aware of this. iPod sales were already slowing and were about to decline anyway because they had major market saturation. How many people are going to buy one of those things every year? Not many, and the devices should last a while.

Hey, I thought it was a *great* article. I was no fan of Win95 (preferring OS/2 myself) but, clearly, Win95 had a huge impact on the industry. And its hype certainly matched that of the iPhone.

Nobody's saying that Win95 was the perfect OS or that iPhone is the perfect phone--just that they have industry-changing ways about them.

And while computers (laptops/tablets) will probably never go away (you don't want to type 10-page reports on an iPhone), you need them a lot less than you used to. I just returned from a trip where I left my MacBook Pro at home--all I needed to surf the web, check e-mail, listen to music, and make phone calls was my iPhone. Very handy, indeed.

Superb article.

Others have alreasy gone over whether an operating system for a PC can be compared to an operating system for a smart phone, so I won't belabor that point.

We should remember, though, that some of these observations are just plain flawed. The iPhone is NOT everywhere, at least not in the sense that Win95 was. The iPhone's cost is NOT $199, it is for most people somewhere between $2000 and $3000 depending on what country you are in and what that cell network operator sets as the contract terms. The AppStore is revolutionary for a cell phone, but just like the Apple retail store it sells only those applications annointed by the company priests - for Win95, I could buy apps from anybody. Finally, as a security professional, I think the iPhone still has a ways to go before it gets my up-check for the enterprise; it's improved, but it's still not where RIM is. For the record, Win95 security was no great thing either ;)

The iPhone is expensive, limited and locked: it's the new "mobile PowerPC Mac platform". It will not be the defining platform.

Silverlight is the real deal: it's a cross-platform, cross-browser and cross-device plug-in. It can handle the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web without being expensive for the user.

Silverlight makes more sense than iPhone as a defining platform for 21st century.

I don't remember Microsoft tying it's product to any one service provider or PC manufacturer. Apples efforts to completely control things and "hitch their wagon" to AT&T will eventually stiffle the success of this product.

The iPhone seems like a great device, but I just purchased an HTC Touch and I love it. Why? Because it does everything I need, is half the size of the iPhone, and I save $30/month by not using ATT. Plus, it took me 30 seconds to completely setup the sync with our company's Exchange server. It 'just worked'.

So the iPhone is great for some people, but many, many people want something else.

Will the iPhone ever have the 90% market share in phones that Win95 had in computers? Let's see, that would be selling 900 million phones per year. Uh, I think not. Will it ever have a 5% market share? Perhaps. I don't see the comparison with Win95 here.

The key to the iPhone is the software, and the key to success in the smartphone market will be software. Right now Windows Mobile has 100 times the number of units that iPhone has. The iPhone has a lot of momentum, and it's a great platform, but Windows Mobile is a major player in this market - currently much, much bigger than the iPhone.

Congratulations to Apple for a great device, but I wonder if they will repeat the mistake they made with their PC's: keeping them proprietary, expensive and locked. Apple could have completely destroyed Microsoft with the Mac OS if they had opened up the platform to other hardware manufacturers, but they couldn't give up their big hardware margins. What will they do with the iPhone? If they license the OS to other hardware manufacturers, they could gain complete dominance in the cell phone market. Will they? Somehow I doubt they will learn the lesson.

This silliness is over the top even for an Apple fanboy! More cell phones than PCs? Duh. There have always been more phones than PCs - more indispensible, more universally understood, and cheaper. The platform is superior to a 13-year-old computer platform? Duh again. My Centro is more capable than a 25-year-old mainframe. So what? My '85 Corolla cornerd better than my '57 Alfa. It's call "progress" or, in the case of devices that use CPUs, "Moore's Law".

Silliest of all, of course, is the simple fact that object of Joe's bliss just a smart phone. It does everything a phone does. Big deal. It does a few things a PC does, some of those as well or maybe a little better - great if that's the only functionality you need.

Joe is right about the comparison with Windows 95, though. The only PC a phone might replace is the Windows 95 machine that my granny still uses to surf the internet and read email. But she ain't gonna buy an iPhone.

Enjoy your phone, Joe, but don't toss your real computer just yet.

Marketing blitz and people waiting in line has very little to do with the value of a product.
Win 95 was sorely needed as the old OS had not kept up with the hardware. It was everyone with a sports car and none of the roads were paved.
The iphone is more a see what I have and I'll spend lots of money to make it do something just to justify the purchase. Maybe it will evolve into something that helps us find information as we need it as win 95 turned into win98 as the web exploded or maybe it will be a paperweight as the hardware will be obsolete as you will need a iphone 3 to be able to do useful stuff.
As the population grows older, the phone will have to grow as people cannot read the tiny screen.

Saying that the iPhone is going to replace PCs is as foolish as saying that television will replace movies or radio. Or that the PC will replace mainframes. Or that a Swiss Army Knife will replace all the components it has. As others have pointed out PCs and iPhones are complementary. I can't imagine myself here at work working on 36 different windows on a corporate network on an iPhone. It's possible that 80% of the people can do 80% of their work using only an iPhone but you will always have the 20% of people that need a PC to do 20% or more of their work. iPhones aren't going to hack it in industrial processes. They aren't going to work in front of customer service agents or at the checkout counter. They certainly won't work as servers. The iPhone is definitely an "inflection point" (to use Gordon Moore's term) and of colossal import, and it will change the way people use cellphones to be sure (I wouldn't doubt it if the notebook industry suffered a big blow), but to predict that iPhones will "replace" PCs is just asinine. (I would have respected the argument more if he said not that they were "dead" but that they would be relegated to a niche market, or even that they would be the predominate platform people use.)

You folks seem to be getting a bit too literal here. I think the author has made an apt comparison between the eras launched by the two.

By the way, I would contend that Apple is transitioning away from being a hardware company too. Now, sure, they're not about to let anybody else market an iPhone clone anytime soon, but really, they're selling the iPhone in order to generate customers for iTunes. Even at $199, it's a safe bet that they're still making a fair profit from the device, but the real gains are to be found in the music, services, & software offerings. They're all but giving you the razor because they know you'll use lots & lots of blades...

Hari Seldon: funny sci-fi reference! I was around when Xerox created the GUI interface with the Palo Alto Project so let's talk about who is aping what. That little bit of history gets ignored by Macophiles. The truth is there is only so much true inovation, the rest of us just improve on it.
The iPhones are great if all you need is the web browsing and texting and phone calls, but as usual at a higher cost than anyone else. As others have pointed out here, comparisons to a 13 year old product that had over 90% of the market to a phone that probably will never exceed 10% is not valid.
This article is another example of hype running over logic in it's haste to announce the next tech wave. Apple will never learn the truth about commercial products, most people want something to help them work or play better with minimal effort. Apple always wants to show the world how smart they are but never understands that very few are listening or care. Yes, they define "cool" but that only goes so far. Then given the expense and hassles of using products that restrict how you can use what you paid for keep most of us away. You don't rent an iPhone why does Apple lock the thing down as if they do and then brick it if you try to take control of your property?

"Microsoft aping Apple (again)"

Remember, Apple didn't really invent anything, they just repackaged what was developed at PARC. iPOD, just a decent MP3 player, really for the masses and those who like being told what OS they WILL use to load songs on. Even OSX is just a blend of BSD-Unix and NeXT. No, much like Microsoft, they don't innovate, they take ideas and improve (sometimes) and market LIKE they do.

At least Microsoft has yet to tell the masses what PC hardware, what processor, etc. they WILL use or face EULA or other violations.

WAKE UP PEOPLE! Join the forces of Freedom! Free yourselves from the slavery of M$ and MACO$! Make the move to Linux. Then you will be able to say 'free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last'....

Everything being discussed revolves around a consumer-centric / mass-market valuation. The PC era started way before Windows 95 and will continue way beyond Windows Vista. The PC era ended up becoming this consumer-thing. The iPhone is only a defining platform in terms of the consumer market. No one in their right mind will perform their development and business functions on a handheld. Even if you want to use the "Power" of a handheld device you will end up using the traditional entry and display devices (keyboard, mouse, display monitor, etc.) anyway. Perhaps the iPhone will be better suited (as has been the MacOS) for some people, but the PC will continue on long after it has faded from the consumer mindset.

Iphone OR PC? why one or the other? Let's get a little convergence going - small portable display moile AND big storage & display at home base. Let me keep my data from the phone on my PC - I keep losing it every time I try to recover a cell from a dunking or other misadventure....
It would also be good to call my pc for info sometimes....

With all this talk of iphones being "revolutionary" can anyone state a new and specific and non replicable function that those devices have that is simply non obtainable through some other means? This is an evolutionary gadget with some convergence of technology that has been happening since the first cell phones along with built in calculators became available.

The amount of favorable marketing promotion that iphone receives in the media is quite astonishing indeed. Sometimes it makes me wonder if Apple actually finances at least some of it.

To the blog writer:

Do you plan to blog, go through annual performance process with your boss (not sure who it is), do banking, shopping (clothing, electronics, etc) via phone? Pls let us know after 5-15 years.

Here are the questions for the blogger and other so-called IT journalists
a) Have you ever asked yourself this question? Do you think that HP, Dell, Lenovo (focus on three instead of other hardware vendors) and Retail Chains (Best Buy, Circuit City, Frys, etc) would vanish from the earth? Those firms need PC's for their existence, and it would be naive to imagine that PC will be dead in the next 25-50 years.
b) Have you wondered whether you and your colleagues (from eWeek, ZDNET, InfoWorld, ComputerWorld, PCWorld) would have a job if you all focused on providing unbiased opinions on all vendors? All of you seem to focus just on one vendor, and try really hard to give the impression that all other vendors (Oracle, IBM, SAP, Apple, etc) create perfect products and have no issues.
c) Why on earth are we (people in America) so crazy about a phone and music player? Do you think that social circle would expand and others would have better opinion about us? Do we think our education system will dramatically improve? Do you think divorce rate will go down just because some of us will carry iPhone or iPod? Do you think we will become more healthy by listing to music and tinkering with a phone for no reason? Do you think economy will improve and we will have a budget surplus (instead of trillions of budget deficit)?
d) Why do you want to advertise some product to help some vendor (& their executives) become rich from consumers? If their product is good, you and others don't need to sell it for them. (it will happen on its own). People don't realize that every vendor wants your/our money, so it is ironic that we thrust our (biased) opinions just so that some vendor will gain a slightly bigger market share than others.
e) Why are IT Journalists telling/pushing people to like certain products and dislike others? This reminds me why people from other countries don't like our America country. People over here tend to thrust their opinions (choices about OS, phone/mp3 player, religion, politics, way-to-achieve happiness, etc) onto others.
f) Have you considered how rewarding your job would be to report about solving technological problems that consumers/businesses face? You and other IT journalists seem to have aligned towards a certain vendor (Apple Watch, Microsoft Watch , Google Watch, Linus Watch, etc), and that in short is biased reporting.
f) Why don't you (and we) spend our energies in appreciating the product we love instead of saying negative things about the products we don't own (or don't plan to use)?

Finally, being open to all kinds of products is more important than being biased. What do we want to teach our future generation (broad minded nature or hatred)?

General comments

I would be very happy if all IT Journalists have some sort of ethics code to disclose stocks they own and kickbacks (free devices, compensation, stocks, vacation packages) they get from vendors. As soon as that happens, journalism will focus on educating/informing/helping consumers and businesses instead of promoting products of certain vendors.

I think that claiming the iPhone or any cell phone is going to replace the PC as the personal or business computing platform, is optimistic at best and ridiculous at worst. The author has ignored the fact that, in order to even activate the iPhone, the user must synchronize it with a Mac or PC running iTunes. The author does indeed sound like a Fanboy. I have yet to hear of anyone replacing their computers with an iPhone. If the iPhone was made available on all networks without restriction it might be closer to mass adoption, but not everyone wants to be chained to AT&T in the USA or pay $800 in France for an unlocked iPhone. Yes folks, it is subsidized in the USA for $199 but overseas, an unlocked 8GB iPhone will run you $800. At that price you could buy yourself two PC's network them, and two people would have real computers to use versus half a smartphone with missing features that others have. Just because a million people are willing to stand in line to buy an iPhone doesn't mean the second coming of Jesus has arrived and the PC is dead. It's a Phone. Get over it.

This "mobiles will replace PC's" claim we have been hearing for years. Personally, I hate mobile's. They are tiny, cumbersome, slow and I don't care how many wizzbang interfaces and bells and whistles they have, they will never replace a PC for anyone that needs and uses a PC.

Oh yeah, composing an email, spreadsheet, anything you typically do on a PC can be done on a mobile, but it's very annoying and cumbersome to do so on a mobile, even the wizzbang iPhone.

Sure, maybe the size of the PC may shrink and the speed and power go up, but the PC or "home computer" isn't going anywhere and the mobile isn't going to replace it.

How that PC is configured may change, but you're always going to want and need a place with a large screen, keyboard, and other devices associated with that to work on. Simply because our hands are big, our eyes are limited and space is a premium. I have three monitors and you know what? I could use a fourth. I dinky tiny keyboard and screen just doesn't cut it for me.

Replace the PC?! Give me a break!

I found a very interesting and detailed article:
The Missing Guide to the iPhone 3G Price. (What Apple Forgot to Tell Us).
You should check it out!

Wow! Deja vu -- this discussion reminds me of the ones I heard when the original Mac was launched. I couldn't save those, but I will save this one. Joe said, "Mobiles will replace computers as the most widely used personal devices..." yet we have all these responses that the PC won't go away (Joe might agree), not to mention the usual trolling with the same dreary talking points. Let's just see what the market and mind share of mobile touch screen computers is say two years from now. As "fanboy" Joe said, "Even if the iPhone should stumble and fall down, the mobile remains the future of computing and connectivity." I agree.

The Author of this article is right...
He has glimpsed in to the future...

What most people don't understand is that PCs have already been replaced by more portable devices like Laptops...

Vast Majority does not use computing power for working on heavy apps... instead they use it to stay connected and organized... Think about it..

The Future is...
Virtual hard-drives
Virtual Appz
text-to-Speech/ Voice Recognition

And a way to access that simply...

When mobile technology converges with the internet... there are infinite possibilities

And This is real Future... no wonder Google has thought that out and is ready with Android

They definitely have something cooking up... Hope they don't miss the bus in this wait and watch game.

Nice article, Joe, I get it. I usually find more info in the comments than the original piece. The power of multiple opinions outweighs the opinions of any one person. Not in this case however.

Some people took you too literally. Some people can't see the future that you see. And the fanbois? Well their vision is cloudy at best. I think your analogy to Windows 95 is spot on, and original. I haven't seen this anywhere else.

This is coming from a guy who has no laptop, and no cell phone. Just because I haven't adopted it, doesn't mean the world isn't going in that direction. With multiple desktops, I have move some of my information to 'the cloud'. I am not set in my ways, but I'm moving at my own pace, based on my own needs.

Given a choice, my next device would be a large iPod Touch type of device. All of my data accessable to all my devices, perhaps my own NAS, rather than a service. These devices are becoming appliances. A bluetooth headset would allow phone access via Skype, or similar service. The browser is becoming my tool of choice. By the time we get to web 3.0, whatever that is, installed applications will be for very specialized tasks only.

Joe, you are beyond the masses with this one. Keep up the good work! Forgive me if I sound arrogant, but many of you just don't get it.

Apple has done nothing new, they have finally gotten into the smartphone category, or at least have attempted to. Their offering is only a fraction of what could be done, but in typical Apple fashion, is some their Orwellian rule. They did not want to kill Big Brother in 1984, they wanted to become Big Brother.