P.S. How’s the Stereo Bluetooth on that iPhone?

All iPhones works with iTunes. This opens up a world of content for your average user which can’t be matched (easily) by any other mobile phone. Yes, we could all join Netflix and rip content to our iPhones but how many average folks will do this? How many average people even knows about newsgroups? Secondly, most people already have most of their CD collection ripped into iTunes because they own an ipod. Please don’t bother posting that you own a Sandisk-Something. Apple outsells every other competitor in this arena by leaps and bounds.

The Apple App Store demolishes all competitors…period. Yes there are plenty of apps available for other platforms but none of them are even remotely resemble the Apple App Store. 10k+ apps available in the first six months. The iPhone is no longer just a phone. It has launched an entire computing platform.

The iPhone 3G institutionalized the revolution the original iPhone started in 2007. 10 million+ units sold in 2008 and counting…we can only guess what the final numbers will be. Picking anything but the iPhone 3G as Phone of the Year is just being silly and intentionally contrarian in some vague attempt to be original.

But I disagree that the Mogul changed the industry the most. One isolated incident that a device was supported with upgrades is not a trend but rather more like an accident that I have zero confidence will be repeated so I’m not breaking out the champagne just yet.

I do respect the efforts of this website as a consumer watchdog to try to control the unregulated abuses of power of these wireless carriers. Keep up the good fight as we are all the beneficiaries of your diligence.

Kudos should also go to Apple who gets my praise for continually upgrading the software on their phones.

Criticism also goes to Apple for profiteering on every little piece that they control and restricting the innovation of others. Additional criticism goes to Apple for not having the following: video camera, stereo bluetooth A2DP, turn by turn gps, tethering, etc,,,

Kudos goes to the Mogul and others for pushing the envelope of device features.

I’m with you that if software can be upgraded, it should. But the Tilt had a few software upgrades too. It didn’t lauch with all of the features that it currently has. I know for sure it had updates to add WM 6.1, and video calling. It also had an update giving it HSPA (it launched with UMTS). So that is basically the same as going from EVDO rev 0 to EVDO rev A. I don’t know if it launched with GPS or if it was an update because I didn’t own one when it launched (I was using a Mogul at that time).

I totally understand wanting to reward the guys who do it right (letting you max out the device before forcing you to buy a new one) but the Tilt also had updates to max it out. You should fault them for launching a device that already had certain features built in at launch (and it launched around the same time as the Mogul).

Both are great phones though. The Mogul was the best phone I ever owned until i got my Tilt (and I have been using PDA phones since the Hitachi G1000).

On a side note: how great is it that we can even have this discussion? A couple years ago there was never even a debate about the phone of the year, or best PDA phone. We were lucky if we had 1 great device released every year- most of the time it was 1 great device every 2 years. Now we’re seeing several great devices every year. And the price of these devices is getting cheaper and cheaper. I paid $650 for a Hitachi G1000 about 6 years ago. It was the hands down best device on the market for about 2 years (until the PPC-6600 was released). Now we’re seeing 2 or 2 great devices (or more) every year, and you can get them for a lot less money than the $650 (with contract!) that I pais for the G1000.

On that note- I am not an iPhone fan by any stretch, but i think their $200 price point was definitely a game changer. It made PDA phones affordable for the average joe, and all the other guys had to be around that price range to compete. And with all the hype and sales of the iPhone, it brought a lot of new players into the game who wanted a piece of that pie. Now it’s pretty common and expected to get a top notch PDA, and have several to choose from, for $300 or less on any given carrier (with contract).

Keep in mind we weren’t picking the “best” phone, that’s something that can be argued all day long. We picked the phone that changed the industry the most in 2008.

HTC attempted to continue the perpetual upgrading of handsets with the Tilt/Kaiser. If the HTC Hermes (the Kaiser’s predecessor, aka the AT&T 8525) got half the official firmware updates that the Tilt did, most people would still be happy with their AT&T 8525/Hermes.

In short, the Titan got updated, while the Tilt forced customers to buy a new phone, in order to get software updates (HTC promised updates to Windows Mobile 6.1 and A-GPS, for example… and never delivered on those promises to the AT&T 8525/Hermes, adding “incentive” to upgrade to the Tilt).

That’s wrong in our view, and it’s more of the same from the wireless industry. The HTC Titan bucked that trend, and that’s why it got our praise… for making a difference in the wireless industry.