In all the coverage of Apple's new i-Phone, no-one seems to have mentioned that one of the major mobile telephony applications today (certainly for teens and young adults) is texting rather than voice. Indeed, in Japan, teens text or email in preference to making voice-calls. But how efficiently can you text from a touch-screen (which is what iPhone is proposing)? And do you really want the thing that you're tapping numbers on all the time and holding up to your ear to listen to be the same thing you watch video back on?
I think Steve Jobs has just taken convergence one step too far. By all means combine iTunes with mobile telephony: Apple stands a better chance of making that combination work than most. But converging all the input and output functions onto a single touch-sensitive display device may prove to be a bridge too far.
I think this one's slipped through Apple's net because Jobs and other Apple execs are all baby boomers, and they typically just don't use mobiles for texting. But if you want a new mobile phone to take off, you have to take the 11-16s with you, too, and that means making SMS as easy if not easier than before. I doubt if the iPhone's touch-screen can pull that one off.
