Of course if it came out tomorrow, it would be in iphone os 6 or 7 as it took 3.0 to get stereo bluetooth! It's such a shame as many phones had before the original iphone was released. Never could understand that as it is a music phone.
As I hear it, Jobs tends to snub implementing technologies that are a little ahead of themselves in terms of the quality of user experience (or in the case of Bluetooth, something who's licensing represents "a bag of hurt"). If you blink and look again, apparently, A2DP will NOT be supported on the original iPhone either with the 3.0 update, due to "hardware issues". This is why its possible that video will NEVER come to the iPhone and iPhone 3G, and instead be reserved for the new model of iPhone (alongside its newer, more capable hardware).
Most phones have historically taken an "I did it, now leave me alone" approach to supporting different hardware and/or software solutions. They'd implement crappy voice command software, buggy A2DP support, unnervingly useless media player support... meanwhile, the biggest frustration with the iPhone isn't that it didn't provide enough value for people to want it, but that it did SO many things SO well, that people wanted the iPhone to hit every corner of the mobile landscape from its inception with the same level of excellence (which was impossible, or someone else would have did it).
Realistically, how does that work for competitors? Look at the Helio Ocean. Remember how much it was compared to the iPhone and said to be a "killer"? Well, guess what? It wasn't. It continues to be an also-ran, proprietary, no-3rd party app having, compromised eco-system.
HELIO OCEAN - besting the iPHONE 24/7
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/329599/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/536224/
Why is it that iPhone is supposedly so "behind", while people are claiming now to be waiting for the Palm Pre as the new iPhone killer? It continues to be wildly out of step for anyone to ONLY look at the features Apple did NOT provide, and pretend as if it hasn't eclipsed other devices on many features they DID NOT provide, or did very poorly.
This isn't a perfect world. Sometimes you have to make a choice between doing 6 important things well, or doing 10 semi-important things poorly. I think Apple's choice in this area will be paying dividends for a looooong time to come. People will stop the chatter over "missing features" in about a year, and start talking about Apple cornering the market and not letting other phone manufacturers tap its growing infrastructure and momentum (accessory market, iTunes, etc).
I remember some time ago trying to put together a list of all the main iPhone competitors at the time. The list is populated by such of parade of irrelevant devices, its embarrassing to think how close these things once seemed on paper (especially the ones that never quite showed up in the market). Anyone remember hearing about the "Deeda Pi"?
http://www.myphonewar.com/iphone-competitors.php
~ CB
