The iPhone is not as clever as Steve thinks

Imagine you are on the television programme University Challenge. Your starter for 10: identify which mobile has these specifications. Don't press the button until you are sure. Ready? Weight: 135 grams. Camera size: 2 megapixels. Data storage: 4GB to 8GB. Talktime: up to five hours. Connectivity: Wi-Fi and quad-band. Screen size: 3.5 inches; multi-touchscreen. At this point some bright spark presses the button ahead of you to say it is the KE850 variant of LG's Chocolate phone. Jeremy Paxman is thrown, because he has Apple's iPhone as the answer to the question, which was set before Engadget revealed that the Apple multi-touchscreen - almost the defining point of the phone - looks very similar to the LG phone, which won the International Forum Design Product Design Award for 2007.

None of this is to detract from the amazing chutzpah with which Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone last week, grabbing headlines all over the world. In terms of free publicity for a product that won't be available for six months - and then only in America - it was almost without precedent. It looks gorgeous, designed with the user, not telephone company revenues, in mind, and will have an eager market not least among Apple users (of which I am one).
But hang on. Jobs claimed: "Once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything," adding that the device was "five years ahead of what's on any other phone" and would change the way people thought about mobile communication devices. Well, the mobile phone industry is at a crossroads at the moment. The "revolutionary" path would be in the direction of free telephone calls through the internet and capitalising on the revolution in user-generated content.

I have been testing a couple of devices which are innovative in these directions. One is the Nokia N800, which has a much bigger screen than the iPhone, is driven by the Linux operating system and is an internet-only device unconnected with the mobile operators. It is impressive but, sadly, has to wait until the rest of the world catches up by installing widespread wireless networks. But it remains my best user mobile experience with the internet.

The other, which I have mentioned before, is the 3 network's adaptation of Nokia's N73 model. In addition to good-quality streamed television (eat that, Steve) and unlimited data downloads to your phone under a fixed-price tariff, it also has a 3.2 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens that is almost certainly better than the iPhone's 2 megapixel device. At the weekend I tested the N73's Skype function, which gives you free one-click phone calls through the internet to any other Skype user.

It is the only operator I know of on this side of the world that offers this through Skype (though other companies such as aq and Truphone offer free internet calls). The reason is simple. Operators are scared of losing all those lucrative voice revenues. The Skype button on the main screen of the N73 worked first time and I had a 30-minute conversation of reasonable quality. 3 is also pioneering user-generated content through mobiles with its SeeMeTV service, while the "revolutionary" Apple is sticking to its famed "walled garden" to keep out the backroom programmers who have been shut out of the mobile revolution but who thrived with the BBC B and the Spectrum. It is also limited in the US to one operator, Cingular, and, in what may be seen as its biggest weakness, the touchscreen is not obviously suited to single thumb-based texting, which - unlike in the US - is the main use of the mobile phone in Europe. Did anybody tell Steve that?

But it is beautifully designed with special features and that may be enough to see it through. It is just a pity that this unique opportunity to redesign the mobile from the user's point of view didn't go a few, well, revolutionary steps further.