I got the chance to spend some quality time with an iPhone, and I must say I was blown away with the quality of the experience. It lives up to the hype and glowing reviews.  (One exception was the on-screen keyboard, but for most consumers that’s not going to matter.)

It’s not an inconceivable stretch to imagine the iPhone becoming as dominant in the consumer mobile space as Windows is on consumer desktops. Advances in technology plus lower cost nano editions of the iPhone will make it accessible to a broad swath of the market.

Apple has done such an incredible job with the iPhone that many are inclined to trust their wise and benevolent dictatorship.

But if software choice is real and valid principle, then we ought to apply it consistently.

For example, is it acceptable that Safari is the only browser that runs on the iPhone?  Would it be acceptable if Internet Explorer was the only browser that runs on Windows?

John Lilly of Mozilla has critiqued Steve Job’s keynote speech, which showed Safari gaining market share at the expense of all other third party desktop browsers (but not Internet Explorer!)  He called this “out-of-date, corporate-controlled, duopoly-oriented, not-the-web thinking.” 

If the iPhone remains closed and becomes dominant, we won’t even have a mobile browser duopoly, we’ll have a virtual monopoly. The same argument applies to other categories of mobile software– music (will iTunes have a privileged position on the iPhone above all other music sources), video (YouTube only?), and so forth.

One company, even Apple, can’t have all the good ideas in the world. Even Apple will sometimes favor the interests of shareholders and its carrier partner above its customers (as seen in the iPhones crippled wifi support and lack of a Skype client.) 

Choice matters, and competition matters, but we will only have them if we as mobile users insist upon them.