Today the most popular touch screen mobile devices (or SmartPhones as some would prefer to call them) are undoubtedly the Apple’s iPhone and the HTC’s Touch family namely the Touch and Touch Dual. All the three devices have the revolutionary Finger Touch Flow Screen which enables one to control the opening of programs, scrolling the contacts, surfing the internet and more with the flowing movement or a caress of a finger. This type of Touch Flow Screen usage has taken the mobile industry by storm with even mobile manufacturers like Nokia announcing new devices with this technology. We have taken this head-to-head analysis as we realize the craze behind such devices is unbelievable and even Bill Gates (in the just concluded CES 2008 at Las Vegas) have envisioned that the future is Touch (one of the digital senses). The first impression on the preview of the upcoming Windows Mobile 7.0 tells us that Touch Flow Screen technology in the mobile market is here to stay and rock the industry.

HTC’s Touch was hurriedly launched in June 2007 after taking a cue from iPhone’s showcasing during January 2007 CES at Las Vegas. HTC used the basic concept of the “Touch Flow” to its LCD screen and launched its new generation of TouchFLO Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional (Pocket PC Phone Edition) device. They called it HTC “TouchFLO” with trademark rights so as to preempt competition from not using similar terminology which was becoming popular day by day. HTC realized the potential of such technology becoming more popular with the younger and fashion conscious segment and therefore realized the need for building a smaller and sleeker looking device which would cater to these non-business segments. Hence HTC Touch was born and hit the market much before Meanwhile with the HTC Touch threat Apple hurried with its manufacturing and created the hype for its iPhone and advanced its launch date to June 29th 2007.

The hype turned into frenzy few days prior to the launch with consumers queuing up overnight / days to get hold of one. However, Apple’s strategy to SIM lock the iPhone to AT&T network and usage plan meant that other than USA everybody had to wait to get hold of one. Due to this limited launch HTC Touch took the rest of the world by storm. HTC Touch sales in Middle East were effortlessly high till the time the iPhone –Unlocked Version hit the Middle East market (and most of the world) in September. This parallel / grey market unlocked devices of iPhone created frenzy even though they were offered by dealers without any warranty or technical support. In the Unlocked version the iPhone user is restricted in using the iTunes as any upgrade will cause the device to lock again. And unlocking again is an expensive affair.

The Hard parts

Though both the devices are slim and sleek (thickness for iPhone is 11.6 mm and HTC Touch is 13.9mm) the iPhone is a bigger device measuring 115 mm tall and 61 mm wide whereas the Touch is smaller at 99.9mm height and 58mm width. The iPhone is heavier at 135gms than most mobile phones these days whereas the Touch feels light at 112gm only. Since iPhone is a bigger device it has some functional advantages over the Touch. The 3.5 inch (diagonal) LCD Widescreen display, of iPhone, with 480 x 320 pixel resolution is sharper with images, easier for finger inputs and better for extensive web surfing than on the 2.8 inch LCD display with 240 X 320 resolution of the Touch. Both iPhone and Touch has LCD with optical-quality, scratch-resistant glass which is specifically created for use with a finger, or multiple fingers for multi-touch sensing and touch flow.

iPhone has some innovative features in its display which responds to three sensors: a Proximity sensor that shuts off the display and touchscreen when the iPhone is brought near the face (or ear to make a call) to save battery power and to prevent spurious inputs from the user's face and ears, an Ambient light sensor that adjusts the display brightness which in turn saves battery power, and a 3-axis Accelerometer, which senses the orientation of the phone and rotates the screen accordingly to portrait and landscape mode. Giving a smooth look the iPhone has only one button (which is used for going "back") and everything is operated on the touch screen itself, whereas the HTC Touch has a 5-way Navigation button with two more buttons for the Call and Call Canceling.

One of the bottleneck in the hardware of iPhone is its non-removable Li-ion battery (which gives about 6 - 8 hrs of talk time) which makes is almost a dead-brick when the battery life is over. Though there are replaceable batteries available but a consumer must go to an iPhone Service Centre to replace the batteries unlike the HTC Touch's battery (about 4-5 hrs talk time) which can be removed by a user and replaced immediately without any hassle of going to a service centre. The external speaker and headphone quality of both the devices is loud and clear and lives upto this new trend in multimedia mobile phones.

Probably the biggest advantage for iPhone user is the whooping 8GB internal memory and takes the iPod experience to a phone. Though HTC's Touch comes with expandable microSD slot (currently upto 6GB microSD is available) it only comes with a 1GB microSD card in the box.

The Soft elements

As a multimedia phone both the devices win hands down from other devices. The iPhone is based on the Mac OS X with innovative features like zoom in and zoom out with finger touch flow. The menus are of top quality providing dazzling mini animations on finger caress to move to next menu options etc. The graphics, videos and images looks sharper than any mobile device in the market. However, in giving dazzling multi-touch display experience to the user the folks at Apple forgot to add some basic features required in a multimedia phone. iPhone has some major drawbacks like its simple 2.0 Mega Pixel camera doesn't allow for Video recording, MMS is missing, there is no forwarding option in SMS, the copy - paste feature is non existing, MP3 music cannot be used for Ringtones and Bluetooth transfer to and fro other devices is a disaster. Tough it is expected Apple will offer newer upgrade versions which takes care of most of these shortcomings it is nevertheless now branded as only a gimmick multimedia phone rather than a advance multi-tasking phone which exactly describes the HTC Touch.

HTC's Touch is the first Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional (Pocket PC Phone Edition) phone to hit the market and comes with the advanced Windows Mobile applications like Direct Push (Email etc.), and mobile version of Media Player 10, Outlook, Word, Excel, Power Point, MSN and Windows Live search. iPhone has a long way to match the versatility of Windows Mobile powered devices. One of the main areas where iPhone gives better experience is the faster Internet surfing with its Safari Browser and 3.5" widescreen display.

There are very few worthy third party software applications for iPhone as Apple has decided to be very strict in their support for third party software. Though Apple is expected to release a SDK (software development kit) soon to enable Third Party software development it will still be far behind Windows Mobile third party applications which are available in thousands and much ahead in variety and quality. iPhone has YouTube, Google Maps and Widgets for weather stocks etc. but these applications can be found for Windows Mobile in plenty and with more advance features.

Final Analysis & Beyond

Both devices have a wide connectivity options like GSM / GPRS / EDGE / Wi-Fi / Bluetooth with 2.0 Mega Pixel Camera. The iPhone does not have stylus pen for input and allows a finger to do everything whereas HTC Touch needs stylus for faster input. For a business and multimedia user the HTC Touch is a good buy at US$ 599/- with warranty, technical and spare parts support. Whereas for an out and out multimedia user the iPhone (unlocked version) is a dazzling option even at a pricey $800 (approx.) iPhone has been the fastest selling mobile phone for many networks and has been declared the Best Gadget of 2007 by many including Time's Invention of the Year.

iPhone has inherent advantages in a strong Apple Brand, innovative hardware design and a large iPod following. Whereas HTC Touch has robust software in Windows Mobile and with the announcement of the Windows Mobile 7.0 HTC can take the TouchFLO experience to an all new-level. HTC has the first mover advantage and being in the Touch Screen PDA market for long it has taken the lead. Its new device the "Touch Dual" has incorporated some of the likeable iPhone features like zoom-in and zoom-out for picture viewing. Though both HTC and Apple announced plans to upgrade its current offerings with new features like 3.5G (HSDPA /UMTS for high-speed connectivity) and GPS, HTC has already taken the lead in incorporating GPS and 3.5G feature in the new "Touch Cruise". Like all of you we are also anxiously waiting the new Touch Flow offerings from Apple, Nokia, Samsung, MWg and others.