What's Missing From the New iPhone and Why

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So, people are upset because several things are "missing" from the latest iPhone. People are criticizing that they did not add any "innovative" features such as a better camera, video conferencing, iChat capabilities, etc.
Well if you pay close attention, you'll realize that Apple also released something called the App Store, which most certainly will be able to fill in the gaps for all of these issues. In my opinion, Apple is being smart. After their relationship with AT&T has seemingly gone through some rough patches in the last six months (with AT&T "leaking" certain information, and trying to control the decision making for the iPhone), I'm sure Apple has decided to show them that they're the one calling the shots anyway.

First lets focus on one of the most important things of the new iPhone: the price cut.The price cut prevents Apple from getting a percentage of the revenue from the data and voice plans controlled by AT&T. Well, by introducing the App Store, Apple sneakily finds a way to get around this. The way the App Store works, people develop different applications for the phone, and designate a price to it (ranging from free to whatever they would like to charge), and sell it through Apple. Developers get 70% of revenue while Apple gets 30%. Wouldn't it be nice if someone developed something like...an application for the iPhone that ran like iChat and sold it through the App Store? By leaving it open to third party applications, Apple will certainly be receiving a share of the revenue from applications that will be using AT&T's data plan anyway. My point is that Apple would much rather allow other people to "develop" an application similar to iChat so that they could get some sort of compensation, rather than developing an integrated version for the iPhone and getting absolutely 0 compensation for it.

In terms of video conferencing, I think that Apple is just being somewhat logical. If you could video conference through your iPhone, that would mean you would need a camera in the front so you could see the other person. That would mean you would probably need a camera in the back as well for taking pictures so you could actually look at the picture you are taking. That would mean...you would have two cameras in one phone. That's a lot of cameras in one phone and it sounds very cramped. Today, video conferencing doesn't seem to be really taking off, especially when really the only people you would be able to video conference with would be other iPhone users and people with iChat. Until they develop iChat for windows, and other phones would have video conferencing capabilities, I don't think that will be something that will be showing up in the iPhone anytime soon. Plus think about it. How often would you really use it? Yeah, I like to video chat every once in a while, but it's through my computer. Phones are meant to reach you when you're unreachable through anything else. If you're online, sure you could video chat. But if you're out having dinner, driving, walking down a busy street, or even out in some crowded place, do you really want to focus on your phone during a phone call? You would most certainly be more prone to running into people or getting into a car crash if that were to happen. I think until they really really really get it right, video conferencing will be hard to put into a phone.

What it comes down to, is that Apple is really trying to focus on the affordability and availability in the 70 countries they are planning on releasing it. Regarding other applications that people expected and were disappointed when they weren't presented, just wait because that's what updates are for. Like I said, you can't expect them to release everything at once because that would just make expectations to go that much higher than before, and soon they would run out of innovation. They're playing hard to get, and you just have to be a little patient. Come Christmas time and January, they may be and probably will be releasing a 32GB iPhone. And between now and then, people shouldn't be disappointed with the types of applications that they will be releasing.