At a recent analyst conference, it was noticeable that a) there's a growing number of Apple laptops in the analyst community, and b) the Apple iPhone seems to be the tool of choice within the analyst community now. In the case of a), the vast majority seem to be running Windows under some form of virtualisation to provide the required levels of fidelity of information between themselves, their colleagues and their customers. Although the users like the Apple interface, and the media centricity has some pull, it would seem that here is a pretty strong case for the triumph of style over complete usability.

However, that doesn't seem to be the case when it comes to the iPhone. Now, I'm not renowned as being a great user of the mobile phone, being far more of an email user than anything else. However, when the opportunity came to get my hands on an iPhone, I decided to give it a go, expecting that, as had happened with the plethora of PDAs, smartphones and other mobile devices that I have in various drawers around the house, I'd be interested to start off with and then just use it for the occasional call and looking up emails.

Far from it—I'm finding the iPhone to be an indispensible device, at a business and consumer level, and it seems that the same is the case for other analysts.

At the event, we're all sat there with our iPhones out comparing the applications we've downloaded. We start off with the business ones—Bloomberg for tracking the markets, various different news aggregators for keeping on top of what's going on, IBM's Lotus iNotes to give access to Domino servers, applications for providing up-to-the-minute exchange rates worldwide, flight status at all the airports—pretty much anything that you need from a business point of view, there'll be a free or cheap applet from the App store.

But then, we get to see what else there is on each other's device—how about Shazam, an applet for identifying songs on the radio? Locly, that provides aggregated information from the likes of Flickr, Wikipedia and elsewhere on where you are anywhere on the planet? There's the Light Sabre, the cigarette lighter, the koi pond—all utterly useless, but great fun. Stuff that gets used a couple of times and then only brought out to impress friends, probably, but there is so much of it to choose from.

The overall consensus was that here, at last, is the device that brings it all together. It is not a BlackBerry—the conclusion here was that the BlackBerry was the status symbol of the hard working, nose-to-the-grindstone device that showed that you were important enough to have a business-only device. We'll have to see what the new BlackBerry Storm and Bold devices do here, and whether RIM can break more into the consumer market, where Apple already has a stronger brand and reach. But is this just a view from the pretty strange world of the analyst?

The iPhone is seen as being a cool consumer device, with its multimedia capabilities and ease of use. It is also seen as being a status symbol, even if in most countries it is hard to get hold of due to being tied in to expensive single carrier deals. But, more importantly, it has broken straight in to the business environment—and businesses seem to be accepting this. For example, at a different event, a representative from DHL stated that the iPhone was rapidly becoming a tool of choice for many of their executives, who tend to be highly mobile due to the very nature of the company. While bewailing the fact that Apple is not the most business focused of companies, the guy said that DHL had to move to support the device, rather than try and lock it out. This meant bringing in third-party software to provide endpoint management, but it was, overall, seen as being worthwhile.

A couple of downsides—the battery life is not fantastic, but turning off the various radios when not required and stopping push capabilities extends the life considerably. Browsing speed is not anywhere near the full capabilities of HSDPA 3G, but is adequate in most circumstances. The hunt and peck soft keyboard is not as good as the more solid keyboards found on the BlackBerry, but it works well enough. All small points that don't seem to be turning people away from the device.

The main downside, beyond little capabilities for full enterprise management of the device out the box, seems to be the SDK that Apple provides with the device. Vendors I have spoken with, and plenty of comments on the App store, state that the SDK is not friendly, does not provide the functionality that many would like, and that Apple itself is seen as a constraint when someone tries to get a new application onto the App store, in as much as it struggles to deal with some of the changes, enhancements and needs that a developer puts forwards. This should provide opportunities for the competition—particularly those with a platform for application delivery, such as Blackberry and Google, via Android.

Finally, I saw some market figures on email phones, showing that the iPhone—even before the 3G version had hit the streets—was running at 28 per cent market share. Latest figures show that it is running at 17 per cent of the total handset market (not just email phones)—and that it is outselling the BlackBerry Curve and Pearl, and is the best selling smartphone in the US.

But, at the moment, Apple seems to be there with the iPhone, and unlike other devices where I have been impressed for a week or so and then found myself hunkering for the next great thing, I don't see myself (or the others I have seen welded to the device) swapping away in a hurry.

Author's note: The iPhone I am using is my own—it has not been loaned or provided by Apple. It is under a standard O2 agreement, and no inducements have been offered by Apple or anyone else in the writing of this article. This appears to be the case with other analysts who have also trod this path.