BillDay.com

Reuters is reporting that Nokia’s media head, Anssi Vanjoki, has described iPhone as “quite interesting” but said in effect that the lack of 3G will cripple it in the marketplace.

Nokia, or at least Mr. Vanjoki, doesn’t get it. And a lot of other people are falling prey to this too.

In a perfect device (updating my wishlist from way back in 2004), there would be HSDPA along with the included GSM+EDGE, WiFi, and Bluetooth. But the truth is, at least in the US a lot more people use WiFi in their office, their home, the coffee shop, and quite a few other places than pay for 3G on their cell. And in the two key places, home and work, WiFi is essentially free. Again this is especially true in the US, Apple’s launch geo for iPhone.

Let’s repeat that: WiFi at home and work is essentially free.

Free is hard to compete with. It’s going to be a long time before my mother pays extra for HSDPA, but she already has 802.11g. If Apple makes the use of WiFi truly seamless, a lot of people will buy. 3G or no.

And besides, who knows what features Apple will have in future versions of iPhone? Jobs has already mentioned 3G for upcoming iPhone models. Perhaps it’ll even be in place before the European and Asian launches.

If you accept that WiFi+EDGE is “good enough” for a lot of people, then why haven’t previous smartphones or mobile computers or whatever you want to call them crossed the chasm into mainstream adoption? In a word, interface. In three words, aesthetics and interface.

Just about everybody hates the interface on his or her phone. Free model or multi-hundred dollar smartphone, doesn’t matter, same dislike. And doesn’t every other phone on Earth look ugly now that we’ve glimpsed an iPhone? The promise of iPhone is that Apple, just maybe, has gotten the beauty of the design and the simplicity of the interface right.

You know, now that I type this I wonder if it’s not so much that Mr. Vanjoki doesn’t get it, as that he doesn’t want to get it. How this chart appears in several months may be the best measure of who’s right, Apple or Nokia:

PS I’m a NOK shareholder and use a Nokia mobile every day, all day. I don’t own any AAPL stock and have never owned an Apple product until my recent Nano. I’m just calling things as I see them.

Yuck, it’s official that it’s happening much sooner than many expected:

According the the Wall Street Journal, AT&T is killing the Cingular brand as of Monday January 15th.

What a terrible mistake in my opinion! “AT&T” is so 20th century. It just smacks of back-astardness to me.

Makes me want to change carriers just to get away from the ugly bills and Web graphics that will soon be bombarding me anytime I interact with my cell company. If only there weren’t this little thing in June compelling me to hang around…