There's certainly been enough already written about Apple's new iPhone, and I hesitate to add more to the verbiage. But there is an important element to the iPhone that should warrant some interest. With handset prices falling globally for all vendors, the iPhone might just be their saving grace. At a price point of more than $500 (and that's in the U.S. with a contract) the iPhone is setting a new high in handset pricing, a high that doesn't seem to be discouraging many would-be buyers. And I wonder if iPhone may be able to work its magic on people's perceptions of the mobile phone.

Let's face it, for all of the 3G networks and fancy data applications that have been built, people are primarily using their phones for a few basic things, voice calls and SMS. There is a core minority of hardcore data users, but the phone as personal-computing or information-gathering device is still fairly limited among the masses. Enter Apple, a company that has a knack of taking fancy and complex technology and reducing it to a simple and sleek usage case. It practically invented the digital music player and its original Mac OS revolutionized the personal computer, making it accessible to millions long before we ever heard of anything called Windows.

I'm not saying Apple will reverse the ailing downward trend in phone prices globally. The fact is, the new markets are developing ones, and the phones sold there will have to be cheap. But it may slow that decline a little. If Apple can spark interest in the fancy phone, we may see some resurgence in supposedly mature markets like our own. In the U.S., we expect to get our phones for free, and we'll pay a premium for style or for a specific feature (music playback for instance), but if my decidedly un-tech-savvy friend Phil is suddenly eyeballing the iPhone and talking about the multimedia and personal organization capabilities it brings, then I begin to think there's some hope for this industry. All the other vendors are counting on it; look at Nokia ramping up its Nseries line and Sony Ericsson's attempts to dominate in the high-end feature phone arena. They both stand to benefit from any sudden perception shift in the value of the smartphone. It's a long shot, but Apple may just un-commodify the handset market.

Contact me at kfitchard@telephonyonline.com.