Recently I met a few people which use iPhone but have no additional Apps installed. They use what comes on the phone and are basically unaware that Appstore even exists, they do not have Apple ID account and are pretty much satisfied with that.

Apple is releasing iOS5 soon, and it will feature plenty of small improvements and couple of big ones.

Let's just focus on the big ones, particularly, the new software that will come bundled with iPhone. From the first version of iPhone operating system, till iOS4 little changed regarding preinstalled Apps. You got your Maps, and Calculator and Safari browser and Mail and all that. And in iOS 5 Apple will load each iPhone with:

iMessage - a web based chat that does not eat money like SMS messages operators provide. It will be integrated into SMS App, and it will detect if you are sending to an iPhone or to some other phone.

Newsstand - one location to hold all of your magazines.

Reminders - ToDo list with cool location based features which enable this App to alert you when you enter or leave specific area.

Combined with the new philosophy Apple introduced about activating iPhone (no iTunes required, you can use it out of the box) this will make iPhone a pretty hard-core dumbphone (feature phone).

In addition, Twitter will come preinstalled and deep integrated into system. And do not forget, iOS5 will enable you to access camera without unlocking your phone, right from the lock screen. Of course, they improved Camera App mimicking (stealing?) functionality from other great camera Apps.

Apple checked download statistics from App Store, saw which Apps are used the most, made their version and are now bundling that software with iPhone. In essence, Apple killed instant messengers, ToDo lists and camera apps (I somehow doubt it will be possible to change which camera launches from lock screen).

With iOS5, if you do not take into account games, iPhone will become excellent dumbphone. Quite a lot of people will be able to use it as it is, right out of the box. No Apple ID, no credit card locked into their account.

Why is Apple doing that?

Money. Shocking, huh?

Apple is earning more cash from each sold unit than it could ever earn through App store selling Apps.

Gizmodo says "Apple Gets $831 for Every iPhone Sold Thanks to AT&T Payments". But even if you do not take into account the payment telecom makes to Apple, if you just take iPhone price when you buy it clean from the Apple Retail store (or online store) Apple earns quite a lot of cash on the unit itself. Around $250. Combine all the Apps you bought - what Apple earned through that is miserable.

Apple just wants to sell more units.

And by making iPhone a dumbphone Apple can reach further into the audience, everyone can now use iPhone even without a creditcard or Apple ID, as quite a lot of people will find preinstalled Apps to be sufficient and the wall to Appstore is pretty hard to jump over if you are technically impaired.

Furthermore, mark my words, Apple will improve GameCenter to enable easy download of games. I believe it would even be possible in the near future that users would get three tokens per iPhone Serial Number and could use them to download three games for free through GameCenter. Of course, Apple will pay to the developers those few dollars, what do they care. This would make iPhone the best dumbphone on the market.

With iOS5, Apple reversed the game of Smartphones back to being dumb.

I really do not know, but how useful is Android as dumbphone, if you do not have any accounts (Google, Facebook, Twitter...)? What do you get out-of-the-box?

So, Google+ is here. Everyone is on it already, clicking and making Circles. It actually looks nice, but nice is a subjective term, I have actually heard from some folks that "it is too white and too simple".

I would really like for Google+ to make it big. To stand shoulder to shoulder with Facebook, and maybe one day overthrow the giant Zuckerberg. But, from what I see, it will not be able to do it. Why?

Simple, Google+ is set on wrong foundations which came from wrong assumptions. All the features of Google+ available at launch day are here to completely differentiate G+ from Facebook. The logic of all starting features are here to plug a hole in Facebook.

Circles? They plug a hole in Facebook's inherit problem that basically all of the people you have are in the same relationship to you - they are all your friends on the same level.

Hangout? Video chat, plugs a hole which Facebook did not have covered.

Mass chat? Yup, Facebook does not have that, it has only 1-on-1 chat.

So basically, Google designer(s) *gasp!* and engineers sat down, made a checklist of what is missing from Facebook, and made a site that covers that checklist, or at least big spots on it. And I really do not understand the logic behind such a move. Google just assumed that Facebook is dumb. Did they think that Facebook overlooked those features? Did they really think that Facebook did not come up with those ideas on it's own? That the product development department in Facebook is sitting on their asses doing nothing?

No, Facebook tested that, and more!

Facebook knows Circles is a clever idea but it takes too much effort to neatly organize people you know into separate lists. Dump everyone into same list, then remove them if they are annoying. Simple.

Video Chat? Oh, yes, video chat. Stuff we see all the time in Enterprise and SF movies. Not in reality. I have never EVER EVER saw anyone use video chat except for testing purposes. Be it over Skype, Apple's Facetime, MSN Live or any service. Video chat is complicated. It is technically screwed up (requires camera setup) but more than that - it requires you to be in a situation where you can video chat. You must always look at the camera and smile. You cannot browse porn sites in the background. You cannot lie to your boss "Yes yes, I am just on my way to work" while in reality you are still in bed. It is just too much situational to be mainstream. Yes, I understand that a soldier in Afghanistan could find video chat nice invention to see his newborn baby, but for common folks - video chat is INCONVENIENCE. It is just a bad thing.

Mass chat? IRC does that. Who uses IRC today? Nerds.

Remember Facebook Lite? Clean and simple version? It is closed now, and it is closed for a reason.

In short: Google+ believes that Facebook is doing it wrong, and is trying to plug those "wrong" holes. Silly Google.

Overall, Google+ is a noble attempt. I would like to see it do something. But I believe it is going in the steps of Buzz & Wave. Sadly.