Re:Defining the market (Score 2, Interesting)

I have to concur with you. The cell phone market has reached a lull in the U.S. in terms of pushing forward with new ideas. I don't see EVDO or EDGE as new ideas, just an extension of an existing idea. The same can be said of almost all of the features of the iPhone itself. (Not withstanding the use of OS-X on an embedded platform: where's my Apple iTablet?)

The biggest thing Jobs and Co. is revolutionizing with the iPhone isn't the phone itself, it is how the consumer purchases services from the service provider. If we recall, Verizon Wireless was offered exclusive rights to sell the iPhone but turn the offer down when Apple required that the iPhone purchaser could not be bound by a contract and that no promotional offers tied to a contract were allowed. VZW, using the age-old telco mantra of "rest of your contract and recurring monthly revenues (RMR) generated by locking in customers" model, was reluctant to take on a new business model. Now that Verizon's largest competitor, AT&T, has taken on the mantle of contractless RMR, there is a potential that the US cell phone market will finally be liberated from the US cell phone service contract.

Separating the sale of a cell phone from the service contract in the US is nothing short of revolutionary: a war VZW has been reluctant to fight and one they will ultimately lose to AT&T