The End of the iPhone?

Conventional wisdom says the iPhone is the indisputable champion of cell phones. But what if that's wrong? What if the one thing that can best it is ... an iPod?

A few months ago, I wrote an article explaining how the Verizon MiFi, a wireless wifi card, combined with a mobile web device with speaker and audio like the iPod Touch could replace the cell phone. Living inside MiFi's permanent wifi cloud, you could make all your calls through Skype, or another voice-over-Internet program, on that iPod. Goodbye, cell phones?

Wired's Gadget Lab has done just that and found that the "combo of iPod Touch and MiFi might just be better than the iPhone." Wow.

Charlie Sorrel says the MiFiPodTouch experience is excellent: Google Maps "works great" and Skype runs smoothly. And other bloggers are beginning to wonder whether iPod Touch + MiFi is really the equation to beat the iPhone and its infamously troubled AT&T service. The MiFi data plan is significantly cheaper than the iPhone's, and the iPod Touch has better battery. This will certainly be something to watch out for among tech bloggers, but I'd still like to hear about the MiFiPodTouch experience from a certain tech reviewer. Paging Dr. Pogue...