After arguably the most-hyped product launch ever, the iPhone has arrived.
While Apple's $500 device certainly has some pizzazz that makes it unique, many of its so-called revolutionary features are already available in other phones -- some of which sell for about half the price and, unlike the iPhone, can be used on any network in the world.
Toting an "iPhoney" may not make you the envy of your friends, but if you just want awesome functionality, here's our guide to capturing the usefulness of the iPhone without coughing up all the Benjamins. Depending on which apps you choose, you can roll your own iPhone for somewhere between nothing and $350.
User Interface
The iPhone's user interface, with its sleek layout and big, gorgeous icons, is considerably easier to navigate than your standard mobile. To get the same easy action on your smartphone, download the iPhone skin for Windows Mobile 5. It re-creates the iPhone's main interface window, complete with icons that provide shortcuts to the equivalent Windows Mobile apps.
But the fun doesn't stop there. The screensaver allows you to unlock the phone with the whisk of a finger, and the scrolling action mimics the iPhone's finger-scrolling feature -- albeit with a stylus.
Voicemail Remixed
Apple may be hailing the iPhone's visual voicemail feature as "revolutionary," but savvy users know they can get the same voicemail features, and considerably more, from the web service GrandCentral.
Log in to your mailbox via the company's mobile site, where you'll see a list of your messages. Unlike the iPhone, GrandCentral lets you listen to your voicemail without dialing in or leaving the list of messages. GrandCentral also offers a number of features on many users' iPhone wish list, like call recording, call transfers (letting you switch seamlessly between home and mobile phones) and customized voicemail greetings for different callers.
The main downside is that you'll need to propagate your new GrandCentral phone number to all your contacts. However, the company was just purchased by Google, so we can expect to see its functionality rolling out across the Googleverse soon.
OMG! Chat!
The iPhone has no real chat client, so this is where your non-iPhone shines. Not only are chat clients available for just about every other mobile platform, there's also the Agile Messenger client ($30 per year subscription fee), which supports all of the popular IM protocols. With Agile Messenger installed, you can chat with buddies on MSN, AIM, Yahoo, ICQ and Google Talk wherever you are.
Browser Wars: A New Hope
Need a full-fledged browser on your smartphone? Head over to Opera and grab Opera Mobile for S60 or Windows Mobile. It costs $30, but there are free trials available. If your phone isn't that high tech, try the free Opera Mini 4 beta, which offers most of the features iPhone users get with Safari. Opera's browsers have a full-screen mode, keypad shortcuts and easy image downloads. Unfortunately, as with Safari, Flash support is still missing.
Mobile MP3 Machine
Phones supporting MP3 and AAC playback are nothing new, but there are several phones on the market that can trump the iPhone by playing additional media types. Folks with Symbian phones can add Ogg Vorbis support by installing the free OggPlay. If you have a smartphone without support for Windows Media audio files, you can add it by installing Pocket Tunes ($15).
Multimedia Streaming
YouTube recently launched a mobile version of its site. But to really turbo-charge your multimedia content, check out the SlingPlayer Mobile client for Windows Mobile, Palm OS or Pocket PC ($30). If you're a Slingbox owner, the SlingPlayer Mobile client can stream content from your Slingbox to your phone.
If you don't have a Slingbox, there's another option in RemoTV, which recently launched as a beta service. Compatible with a wide range of mobile devices, RemoTV allows users to link up with their desktop computers and access multimedia files. The service is free, though data charges from your wireless provider will apply.
Try Something GNU
The No. 1 gripe among iPhone owners is its lack of support for third-party apps, which means you're stuck with whatever Apple thinks you need. For power users, this is simply unacceptable. Those looking for the ultimate in customization can turn to a familiar solution when rolling your own is required: Linux.
Canonical will be releasing a mobile version of its popular Ubuntu Linux distribution in October with the goal of making it easy to install the OS on any mobile phone.
Until then, there are a number of phones set to ship with Linux preinstalled. Of particular interest is First International Computer's Neo1973, a GPS-equipped, quad-band phone that should be available this summer for $350 or less. The Neo1973 will be available with the OpenMoko platform, a mobile Linux distro made up solely of open-source software.
Also, these Linux phones will have one particular feature we likely won't be seeing on the iPhone anytime soon -- the ability to make calls using voice over internet protocol.
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