Operations chief Greg Winn said that Apple was not a mobile phone manufacturer and should have "stuck to its knitting".

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, he said that Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and ZTE and others will be coming out with devices that have similar functionality to the iPhone. Winn said that although the iPhone had a touchscreen, he did not believe it made the device revolutionary.

He thinks that the IT press overreacted to the invention as it was only a matter of time before touchscreens went onto phones.

Winn added that Jobs' Mob had committed a number of oversights, including its name, which provoked a corporate slanging match with enterprise systems group Cisco. He questioned Apple's exclusive carrier arrangement with US mobile carrier Cingular because it was not a global company.

Then there is the small matter of the non-replaceable battery may also be a sticking point with consumers, as it has been with the iPod, Winn added.

Winn thinks that the phone will be successful initially, but in the long term will go down the gurgler. Telstra was originally touted as being hot favourite to cut a deal with Apple because it was the only Aussie outfit to use the fairly outdated 2.6G technology which the iPhone uses.

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