At first glance, the iPhone doesn't bear much resemblance to the Nintendo Wii. However, in terms of the way they've shaken up their respective markets, both gadgets are implementing remarkably similar strategies.

Despite a much poorer technical specification on paper, the Nintendo Wii is succeeding in a hugely competitive market at the expense of its more traditional competitors - which is exactly what Apple's hoping to achieve with its iPhone.

The iPhone and Wii's market strategy

If you read the iPhone's technical specification you could be forgiven for thinking that it's just another phone, and rather a poorly specified one at that.

However, it's the iPhone's unique interface that makes its competitors look like 20th century relics, and which currently puts it in a unique position in the market.

In this respect, the iPhone is following a similar strategy to Nintendo's Wii: whereas other manufacturers focus on technical specification (megapixels, screen colours and storage space with mobile phones; polygons, CPU speed and other graphical esoterica with the games consoles), both the iPhone and the Wii have focused instead on the user's experience.

The result in both cases is a machine that offers poorer features than its competitors, but a much better user experience - and the results, at least with the Wii, speak for themselves with huge sales and unanimous critical acclaim.

The end of the tech wars

It also means that both devices occupy a unique position in the market.

You can't compare an iPhone with a Sony Ericsson w960i, for example. The Sony Ericsson is the better phone in terms of camera, music player and even the phone itself, coming with HSDPA compared to the iPhone's much slower EDGE; but the iPhone may just be the better phone overall as it offers a much better user experience.

In other words, the technical specification is no longer enough to sell a phone - it's how enjoyable and easy to use that's increasingly going to count.

Adapting to the iPhone threat

This is great news for the future of the mobile phone industry, as all the other manufacturers are going to have to adapt their models in response to the iPhone's threat. This means we'll get brand new interfaces and novel ways of using our phones. Already, many new phones have touchscreens in response to the iPhone's, but few have come even close to the iPhone's level of user experience.

It won't take long, though - the mobile phone industry is one of the fastest changing markets there is, and it only takes one new phone from, say, Nokia or Sony Ericsson, before the iPhone starts to look like the dinosaur it's currently making all existing phones today.

So as we welcome in the iPhone to its rightful place at the top of the mobile phone mountain, it may only be months before the world has yet another new wonder-phone to marvel at. Bring it on!