Oh yes. I want one. Apple is getting a lot of kudos and rightly so for the iPhone. The always insightful Steve Rubel believes the iPhone is an advertising game changer, and he's probably right.

However, after my overwhelming and irrational desire to own an iPhone NOW, began to subside - Cingular is not available in Canada (sigh...) - I began to realize the real trailblazer here is actually Cingular. Yes Apple's device is cool, but without a tellco that was willign to significantly change the rules, it would be a neutered device.

Quick story - a colleague of mine Steve Israelson and I, prototyped a "hacked" plug-in for iTunes in 2003. It enabled users to edit a selection of music to be used as an MP3 ringtone. Basically select the song from your library, select the 30 second piece of music that would be your ringtone, hit enter and the ringtone is created and downloaded to your cellphone via the USB cable. Excpet we couldn't do that, we contacte all of the telco's in Canada - everyone was interested, but the moment we explained that the songs didn't need to use their data network. No interest. I thought this was strange (sometimes I'm slow on the uptake.) until I went to Vidfest in 2005, where a number of presenters talked about how Mobile Content was the future, because it was the only GUARANTEED way of monitizing digital content. Telco's were the gate keepers/toll booths for data flow. They could bill each bit as it comes down the pipe.

Forget that Nicholas Negroponte pointed out over a decade ago that you cannot value all bits the same and the price of bandwidth will approach the margins, what arrogant and hopeful thinking. However, over the last two years - I did start to wonder and doubt as Telcos held an iron grip on data. But along comes the Cingular/Apple deal. Not only did they innovate with the visual voice mail, the are permitting unencumbered data flow via bluetooth, Wifi, and USB 2. This is the stuff of dreams - this is what is REALLY going to change the world once other telcos adopt the same policies.

Now let's hope Apple opens up the iPhone for developers, unlike the iPod. Maybe we can get Marc to make some noise he likes stuff to be open. :)

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