Apple's COO Tim Cook has recently spoken to a group of financial analysts at a tech conference in Las Vegas, discussing the price of the iPhone and its lack of 3G capabilities, among others.

And this is what Cook had to say: 'Our thinking was first and foremost that we wanted GSM because GSM was the world standard and that was one of the factors in the selection of Cingular. Secondly, the product as we announced it has wireless capabilities. Many people, like in this room, have access to WiFi, including this room, home, where you have coffee. Between this spots we are going to use 2.5G because it's widely deployed. We're confident that it will give the user a great experience.'

Moreover, according to Cook, the mobile phones that are being handed out for free are worthless. "A lot of people pay zero for the cellphone. Guess why? That's what it's worth," Cook said. This is very unlikely, since most users are completely satisfied with a nice mid-range clamshell phone that mobile operators are offering for free these days. In the UK for example, most mobile phones are free on a contract.

"This will be a big piece of the Apple story for years to come," Cook told attendees at the Goldman Sachs Group technology conference. "If we offer something that has tremendous value, that is sort of this thing people didn't have in their consciousness - it was not imaginable - then I think there's a whole bunch of people that will pay $499, $599."

And generally he's right, because if Apple does offer something that has tremendous value, it will probably fly off the shelves, even if it costs $599. But who's to say that the iPhone offers tremendous value? It hasn't even been released yet, and there are still several months until we get to see it in stores.

By that time, many manufacturers may have released a whole bunch of phones that are more impressive than the iPhone. With the LG Prada phone, Neonode N2 and Samsung Ultra Smart U700 being launched throughout the last month, iPhone has serious competition already, and is by far less impressive than it appeared to be when Apple unveiled it.

Despite all that, the iPhone is quite a nice handset and for some reason it will most likely record massive sales, but not because it offers tremendous value compared to other mobile phones on the market.