TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

John Gruber explains the market opening the iPhone has left:

As the iPhone goes mass market, it’s creating a vacuum at the high end of the market for a high-quality exclusive phone. Remember when the iPhone was new and novel? Now it’s common.

Gruber’s advice for Android phone makers is to forget about the mass market — don’t even try to compete there, at first. Target the high-end, technology-obsessed consumers, and build a better phone than the iPhone.

Easier said than done, but I think the iPhone has a pretty large weak spot right now. Even though it has GPS, the iPhone is more or less oblivious to where it is — and thus how it should behave. I want a phone that, when I am at a movie theater, turns the ringtone off, and when at home in the evening, turns SMS rings off.

I want a phone that prepares things for me: when I create an appointment with an address in the calendar application, it automatically creates a set of directions in the maps application, which is linked to on the calendar entry.

…And on and on. I want a phone that really is a “smart” phone, and doesn’t just connect me to the web, but makes daily life easier. These are things the iPhone doesn’t do. But more importantly, these kinds of things are conceptually beyond what the iPhone can do — and that’s what a new phone needs to gain an advantage.