KEY POINTS:
I've been doing a lot of mobile internet surfing lately on two devices - the HTC Titan, Telecom's flagship new smart phone, which is based on Windows Mobile, and the Apple iPhone I picked up in San Francisco and had hacked to work on the Vodafone network here.
The advantage the iPhone has over the Titan when it comes to accessing internet services illustrates just how much potential Apple's gadget has to drive mobile internet services.
There have been thousands of mobile internet applications developed for Windows-based phones, some of which are very good.
But most of them are, frankly, just better on the iPhone. It's the mix of Apple's Safari browser and the physical characteristics of the iPhone that have taken surfing the web on your phone to a new level, one rival phone-makers will need to emulate to stay relevant. The iPhone isn't on sale here yet and it could be a long time before it arrives. Apple's plan to open the iPhone up to more extensive application development next year holds a lot of promise if the early iPhone applications are anything to go by. Here are my favourites.
FACEBOOK
It's no wonder Apple is pushing the iPhone Facebook web application more than any other. Facebook on the iPhone is actually more enjoyable than it is when you're using the web browser on your PC. A simple log-in screen greets you after which you're within your profile on the social networking website. The iPhone's screen does the Facebook interface justice. You can make calls just by tapping phone numbers in Facebook profiles. Your Facebook inbox is nicely formated and has the iPhone scroll feature allowing you to easily navigate incoming messages which have a picture of the sender displayed beside them. Particularly clever is the photo-viewing feature. If you want to check out your friends' Facebook photos you simply tap one, which sends you into a photo album slide show. Photos look great on the iPhone's screen and load fast over Wi-Fi. This one is going to be huge.
SKYPE
Here's my ideal scenario - I'm sitting in a cafe having a conversation with an overseas contact using the Wi-Fi connection and the free Skype internet telephony service on my iPhone. Skype on the mobile phone isn't a new thing - I've used it before on Windows Mobile-based smart phones - you pay for the data used, which with the data rates in this country may defeat the purpose of making the Skype call to begin with. Over Wi-Fi, however, the VoIP call doesn't rack up data charges so costs you nothing. While Shape Services has come up with a version of its software IM+ Skype for the iPhone, my experience hasn't been great. I can instant message my Skype contacts easily, but making calls over Wi-Fi isn't working - a dead silence greets me when I initiate the call. The service seems to be better suited to calls over mobile data connections and with many people in the US on all-you-can-eat data plans, it's an attractive option. If I can get Skype over Wi-Fi working it'll be a favourite.
YOUTUBE
One of the official icons on the iPhone's menu takes you straight to YouTube where you are greeted with a list of featured video clips. Tapping on one of them changes the lay-out of the iPhone screen to landscape mode and loads the video. Unfortunately, the videos are slow to load over Wi-Fi so you're best to put the iPhone down for a few minutes and then play it from the device's cache memory once it is fully loaded. The playback is superb. Touch controls let you pause the video and the audio coming through the iPhone's speaker is decent. It would be addictive were it not for the streaming delays.
DIGG
The popular news aggregation website has a basic yet effective iPhone interface listing the latest stories of interest to the web community. Tapping on the blurbs slides the screen over to a panel on the right which gives further information about the story and comments Digg visitors have left. It's slick and easy and because entries are regularly updated, a service that demands regular use.
IFLICKR
An unofficial application you can install on the iPhone's menu is iFlickr, a neat little piece of software that allows you to instantly upload photos to your account on the Flickr photo-sharing website. I can't be bothered syncing my digital camera with my computer so iFlickr is great. I just take all the photos I want using the iPhone's digital camera and iFlickr and when I'm in range of a Wi-Fi network, they're automatically uploaded to Flickr for everyone to see. The iPhone camera isn't great, especially in low-light, but for on-the-spot photos destined for the web, it's more than adequate.
GOOGLE MAPS/EARTH
I've had hours of fun with Google Earth on the iPhone. The satellite mapping service is surprisingly well suited to the iPhone's touch-screen zooming system, though the overall experience is better suited to your bigger computer monitor. Google Maps, on the other hand, can come in extremely handy for use while you're on the move and the iPhone version is very smooth indeed.
NETVIBES
There are numerous RSS (really simple syndication) aggregators adapted for the iPhone, but Netvibes is the one I've been using for the last year so it's pleasing to see it working on the iPhone, giving me news feeds from numerous sources in one location.
JIVETALK
This application lets you log into numerous instant messaging platforms at the one time on your iPhone. I use Google Talk and Windows Live Messenger constantly so its good to have the services at my fingertips. I wouldn't recommend doing too much instant messaging on any mobile device - it's fiddly. But for a quick message it's perfect.
