The specter of the iPhone hung over the 2007 spring CTIA Wireless show, casting a dark shadow of uncertainty over the whole event. Fast forward a year to this year's conference. How things do and, to some extent, do not remain the same.

As expected, the iPhone's been a huge hit, turning Apple not just into a huge smartphone player, but a significant force in the mobile phone industry period, all from scratch. And while, like last year, Apple did not have a booth, the iPhone's impact on the wireless world reverberated throughout the show floor.

Unlike 2007, where trepidation over the iPhone's impact seemed to rule the day, 2008 saw a significant shift in attitude regarding the iPhone. This year, we gathered from our time at the show that the iPhone is now seen by a significant portion of the cell phone industry as representing not just a threat but an opportunity.

Building awareness of capablities and making progress in improving the ease-of-use, access and integration to mobile content were some of the key themes running throughout CTIA this spring. That is, while there are plenty of data services available, most of them aren't - save messaging - used as much as they could be, that easily, speedily (even with 3G networks), and - most frustrating of all to all stakeholders - on consumers' radar.

For a lot folks in the industry, while they've been aware of these problems for years, the release of the iPhone is what got them out of their malaise and into taking more aggressive action.

So we had a number of vendors, even direct Apple competitors, speaking to us about how the iPhone's drawn a lot of positive attention to the industry. It has also shown consumers some of things you can do with a cell phone and smartphone that they may not have been aware of before.

On the platform side, at CTIA, you had Microsoft come out with Windows Mobile 6.1, which features mostly usability enhancements, and, over the past year, Nokia adding touch screen support to S60. The first Nokia device with a touch screen, the Tube, started to make the rounds in throughout the Internet rumor mill shortly after CTIA ended.

Me Too Touch Screens
And then, of course, you've got everyone and their mother coming up with touch-screen feature phones and smartphones because of success of the iPhone. That's a type of display and user interaction that seemed to be going the way of the dodo bird, due to the growing ubiquitous of phones with keyboards.

While these other vendors have made great strides in touch-interface ease-of-use and capability, they're still not in the iPhone's league, especially since multi-touch technology is not part of the equation.

Then again, iPhone-level technology - particularly in the screen - isn't necessary (or even warranted) to achieve what some of what these manufactures, carriers and platform providers are trying to accomplish.

Take the Samsung Instinct, announced at CTIA, and coming soon from Sprint, for example. It's a pretty slick device with a touch screen. However, while it offers some features not in the iPhone (expandable memory, 3G support, GPS), it is not nearly as advanced.

What it appears to do well, however, is make it easy for users to access the myriad of content services Sprint has to offer, in a way that's pretty seamless and not mind-bogglingly complicated, as is often the case.

In other words, Sprint sees Instinct mainly as a way to grow ARPU (average revenue per user) by making content more readily accessible to the consumer

The iPhone, by contrast, gets people to use AT&T's data network more, but not for the myriad of carrier-specific content services the carrier has to offer its customers.

Engaging Consumers Through Developers, Services
At CTIA, Nokia also impressed. But instead of a new device doing the impressing, it was what Nokia's doing with their Ovi line of online services and its Forum Nokia program to bring more advanced content and services to customers that made an impact.

With Ovi, you've got Nokia combining a wide range of content services for its smartphones. There's the just re-launched N-Gage - as a gaming delivery platform and community - a music service, mapping, and some social networking services.

The latter falls under what Nokia calls the Share brand. I was pretty impressed by the demo I received. It's very MySpace and FaceBook like, but much more integrated into the mobile experience, from the ground up, for easy of use from the hand.

Forum Nokia is a system by which Nokia supports and encourages the development of more unique mobile applications, most of which fall into the long tail. It is also designed to help developers monetize their wares.

One member, Melodis, provides a voice-enabled search for music service that even allows you to find a track by singing/humming a tune into your handset.

Another member, knfb Reading, uses proprietary software installed on a Nokia camera smartphone to read text allowed to the visually impaired. Simply snap a picture of a document and it'll read the text to you aloud.

What's most remarkable about this application is that none of the processing is done on remote servers, but only on the smartphone itself. That tells you a lot about how powerful mobile handsets have become.

The Changing Face of Mobile Content
Another application of the technology knfb demonstrated to us showed how they could use it to recognize cold hard cash, literally. Take a picture of a five-dollar bill and the phone will tell you exactly what it is, whether the bill is facing up or down.

Looking at mobile content from another angle, you've got media manufacturers like SanDisk searching for ways to get folks more interested in their products, especially by making them more aware of their cross platform capabilities—for instance, showing how you can use the same SD card to move content between a camera, phone, mp3 player and a desktop. Part of its campaign includes the sponsoring of music events, like many other vendors, to help grow awareness of their brand, for example.

As we mentioned earlier, nearly all the companies we talked to, no matter what type, spoke of Apple's entrance into the market with the iPhone as an opportunity as much as much as anything else. Yes, because it raises the bar, but also - and mostly - because it raises awareness for consumers about all the different things they can do with their phone.

One of these companies was Handango, the major online software retailer for smartphones.

Handango is being shut out of the iPhone applications bonanza that's coming because of the way Apple setup the distribution method - all official native apps must go through Apple and the iPhone App Store.

Nonetheless, Handango asserted to us they only see an upside to the iPhone. Why? Because native apps on the iPhone will raise awareness of what folks can do with their phone, leading them to say to themselves, "I didn't know I could do that" with a phone.

Partially as a result of the iPhone, Handango expects we'll see a larger breadth in the type of content released for cell phones and smartphones. This significant change is also the result of what Handango says is the moving out of the early adopter phase of mobile content acquisition to what they call the early majority segment.

Last year, for example, Handango saw entertainment take over the top spot from utilities as the most downloaded type of content from its stores. Hence, mobile content is now as much about fun as utility. The huge growth in entertainment downloads represents the expansion of application acquisition to the early majority segment, according to Handango.

Interestingly, Handango re-iterated something we heard from others as well, that they see the focus of software delivery expanding beyond the carrier and OEMs. You're getting content packaged on physical goods, such as SD cards (a la SandDisk) and the integration at the point of sale of additional content.

So you're going to get the Best Buys of the world offering to install a content package or two by USB, Bluetooth, expansion card etc.—depending on what the user wants or needs—either as a value-add or for a fee when someone buys a new phone. It's the "do you want fries with that" model.

They can create content bundles. Say someone buys a Pink BlackBerry Pearl, one would think a fairly specific demographic, the retailer could have certain software packages at the ready to offer these consumers in advance.

LiMO vs. Android a Win for Consumers
I had some interesting talks with people about mobile Linux, specifically regarding the gPhone and LiMO, both of which could strongly affect how mobile content is delivered. Some members of LiMO are members of google's Open Handset Alliance (OHA), and others, like Qualcomm, works with both, but is a member of one (the OHA) and not the other.

The whole point of these consortiums is to reduce the amount of fragmentation in mobile Linux, a benefit to everyone, by creating a common set of APIs in the middleware platform for providers. With fewer platforms for developers, carriers and manufacturers to focus on, the more they can put their energies into improving the user experience and creating new content, including applications.

But isn't there going to be fragmentation with two main Linux organizations? Yes. But two is better than the twenty or thirty different mobile Linux variations available before.

With these Linux platforms, carriers and device makers would differentiate their devices and services through the user interface layer. So the differentiation is in the user inexperience not in the basic architecture.

All changes to the basic architecture are supposed to be sent back to each respective foundation to be integrated into future versions of both, so as to continue to keep fragmentation down to minimum and cross-device compatibility at an acceptable level.

It is similar to the way Symbian works with the UIQ and S60 interfaces. The Symbian OS is the base, providing much of the functionality, while UIQ and s60 speak more to how users interact with their smartphone.

That's why it is to the advantage of ACCESS, which has been in the process of developing its own Linux platform - ALP - for years now to join LiMO. They can now maintain the individuality of ALP as a unique mobile platform at the same time it becomes tied to a larger community brought together by common middleware layer and standards.

There are already about 15 LiMO devices on the market, with a few more not announced yet. This is the first version, however, and not the version that is likely to compete directly with the "openness" Android's supposed to provide. The first Android phone's aren't expected to arrive until the second half of 2008, but may not arrive until early the 2009.

LiMO asserts they're better equipped than the OHA, which backs Android, to keep fragmentation to a minimum and (perhaps) more importantly keep all its member companies happy. They view themselves as having a more democratic governance style than the OHA, which, in LiMO's mind is, no matter what the OHA says, a Google entity more than anything else, and is therefore subject to the whims of a single company far more than they are.

"The LiMo Foundation member companies are striving to ensure the mobile industry is an open environment offering many contributors to its growth and development," said Morgan Gillis, Executive Director, LiMo Foundation to SmartPhoneToday. "The LiMo Foundation's IPR policy guarantees that member companies are provided a safe harbor for their collaboration and contribution of intellectual property. LiMo's open, inclusive approach allows anyone from the industry to take part in the organization and contribute to the LiMo platform."

The iPhone's had a positive impact on mobile platform vendors and smartphone makers. And, in the long run, it's not just to the industry's advantage, but for the consumer's benefit as well. Sure, we've seen all the major players trying to make their devices and platforms easier to use over the years, during a time we'll call pre-iPhone, but not with the same focus and quick rate of change we see today, in the post-iPhone world.