Apple was the only big name in mobile that didn’t show up at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week… but it didn’t stop the iPhone 4 from winning the show’s Best Mobile Device Award.
According to the judges, the iPhone 4 won because “it has a great screen, sharp design, fantastic materials, and phenomenal ecosystem for app developers. In a tight race, the iPhone 4 built on the success of its predecessors to set the pace for smartphones.”
Ouch. That’s got to hurt: beaten by a company that didn’t even show up. All was not totally bleak for the Android and Windows Phone 7 device manufacturers in attendance, though: one of their own in HTC won the Device Manufacturer of the Year Award. Personally, though, we think that should probably have gone to Apple too.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
