• Wired, Monday, April 2, 2007 10:15 AM

"When Apple's iPhone gatecrashed CES two months ago, it forced the cellular industry's hand. At Florida's CTIA Wireless 2007 show this week, it forced them to fold. Buzz, if nothing else, has won the first round." That's Wired's Rob Beschizza, serving up further proof that Apple built its new consumer electronics empire completely on cool design, word of mouth and marketing. The products are good too, of course--but in this case, no one has seen the Apple iPhone, and here we are talking about how it's already changed the mobile phone business.

Indeed, the bigness surrounding everything produced by Steve Jobs and co. these days has left its competitors scrambling to catch up. Beschizza says a fresh jolt of competition is exactly what the "sluggish" mobile phone industry needed. Case in point: Samsung and Sprint next month will be taking off the cover to a music player-phone hybrid of their own. Sony Ericsson, LG, and Nokia are among the other mobile phone makers also hawking iPhone clones at the CTIA show.

Despite the overwhelming buzz generated for Apple, competitors say the iPhone attention is good for them too. "Apple is good at making noise in a certain space, which benefits everyone in that space," a Samsung spokesperson said.

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