The iPhone is still, despite increased competition, the runaway leader of the ’smart phone’ technology war. It is easily the most popular of all the smart phones, with massive sales and a huge amount of media attention. With the development of the 3.0 upgrade bringing even more functionality it seems that this success is only going to continue.

But why has the iPhone become such a success? In part it is about the Apple brand. Apple has long had an almost cult like status amongst many of its users, and even those who are less fanatic appreciate the clean, easy design, and powerful technology, that Apple is able to bring about.

Marketing plays a huge role, Apple of course have a massive budget that they can put into marketing – and are past masters at getting the best possible coverage for their technology.

Applications

But the fuel that drives the true success of the iPhone is, in many peoples opinions, the applications. More accurately the huge number of applications that can be used to tailor the iPhone into what the user wants it to be – not just cope with a cookie cutter smart phone that does what the developers think it should do.

The versatility that the applications can add to the iPhone is tremendous. With the right applications the iPhone can be a powerful business tool, a wonderful gaming machine, an ebook reader, a translation tool – and pretty much anything else you can think of.

With so many applications being released on a constant basis, thanks to Apple allowing 3rd party application development, this trend is only going to continue. And so to are the impressive sales figures of the iPhone.

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