It’s really surprising how seemingly obvious things can cause amazement in people. The last couple of days have seen several mobile phone operators and content providers taking at the Mobile World Congress, 2008 in Barcelona, Spain, and some of the announcements and comments validate this belief.

Both O2 and Google have both commented in different ways about the volume of traffic that they are seeing that is being produced by the iPhone Google reports to be seeing 50 times the number of searches being carried out from the iPhone than from other mobile handsets, whilst O2 are monitoring ‘unheard of levels of mobile internet useage’

It would appear to be obvious that when you give people the ability to use a product, the iPhone, in an unfettered way, unlimited access, that people will take the opportunity to use it.

My current phone, Sony Ericcson K810i is fully capable of browsing the internet and using emial, in fact if you believe some of the iPhone detractors, more so because it is 3G enabled, but I rarely use it. Why? Because the input method is rubbish, the browser capability limited (though RSS works quite well even on such a small screen and most importantly, cost.

My package gives me 1mb of data per month, there after I have to pay £3 per mb I go over. This seriously stops me using the internet on my phone. I have been looking at using my phone for sat-nav, pairing it to my bluetooth GPS receiver and then using one of the compatible services, but because they download the map via 3G or GPRS, the cost of using this would be prohibitive.

So whilst the device may not be as good as some for using the internet and its associated services, its not the technology per se that holds back demand, but artificial limits placed on access by the operator, in my case also O2.

It reminds me of the argument that seemed to ensure that the UK was years behind most other countries when it came adopting ADSL.

Back in the days of 33kps modems, BT (British Telecom) had a virtual monopoly for all phone services, they were at the time heavily pushing ISDN as the future of home internet with a whopping 64K connection speed, or you could have dual lines fitted for 128K

Europe and the Far East were moving to ADSL at 256 and 512K but BT resisted all calls to adopt the same approach. There argument was very simple, why go to the cost and hassle of adopting ADSL when there is no content for users that demands such a fast network?

Of course the obvious reply to this, and as it turns out to be the case, is that if you give us the capacity to create the content, then we will fill it.

The findings being vocalised by O2 and Google only go to prove this.

I am not normally one to speculate on Apple products, as part of the fun is in the surprise of each release, but the recent announcement of the 16gb iPhone and the 32gb iPod Touch makes me wonder about the next release of the iPhone

Firstly, why limit the 32gb to the iPod touch and not put it in the flagship iPhone model? Maybe this is to do with supply constraints or maybe moving the iPhone from 8gb to 32gb in one go would potentially rile too many people who had recently bought 8gb iPhones iPhone adopters" target="_blank">(remember the fuss when they scrapped the 4gb iPhone)

By introducing the 16gb iPhone, Apple can create the price differential as well as creating a different product base in the iPhone range.

Which brings us to the second point, when the iPhone was released a lot of the negative press in the UK and Europe seemed to centre around the omission of 3G which is widely rolled out in Europe but by all accounts is limited in the USA.

The argument was that EDGE was fast enough and more prevalent (in the USA) and you could use WI-FI when required. In truth, playing around with friends iPhones to check the web/email etc. the EDGE connection operated by O2 in the UK is pretty snappy (some of the credit for this can probably be taken by rendering engine in Safari/Mail as well)

I can’t say I’ve watched anyone download YouTube content via EDGE so that may cause hiccups but as it goes the lack of 3G doesn’t seem to be causing any great headaches.

The only thing people I know with iPhones universally moan about, is the camera. I know mega-pixels can count for little if the compression is set to high and the lense is crap, but the lack of features and flash cripples what is otherwise a reasonable camera. If you take pictures in bright Californian sunshine!

Therefore I am guessing (hoping - ‘cos I intend to be in the market for an iPhone about July/August time) that come by the end of summer we will be able to choose between a 16 and 32gb 3G enabled iPhone with a 5MP camera and flash, with some clever iPhoto/PhotoBooth type software.

Remember June 29th is the 1st anniversary in the USA of its launch so it should be due an update a bit more encompassing than a HD bump or software update.

In which case I can start pestering people for birthday gift vouchers…….