Commoditizing Design

It was wonderful news to me when the local telcom companies reveal that they ARE bringing in the iPhone 3G later this year. Brings relief to me as I was just about to make plans to obtain it on the grey market. But amidst the brouhaha about its impending entry into the already saturated mobile phone market, what i do find interesting is in the fact that the iPhone in itself is a specific product branding that would sell itself. Unlike Nokia, and others, which would rely on an array of product models to sell, what I mean in the title of today's post is on how, design itself is becoming that differentiating factor of a product, and in this case, a specific particular product, that does what it is supposed to do, and mind you, it's not even having the latest technical specifications to boot, for e.g. the iPhone only has a 2 megapixel camera as opposed to the current high-end models of other brands, which can go as high as 5 megapixels! I mean really, when design in itself has become the selling point, who needs overhyped marketing and cutting edge technological specifications?