The Apple iPhone is looming over the annual CTIA Wireless show this week, but it hasn’t even shipped. And it comes from a company that has never shipped a cell phone, according to Bruce Meyerson of the AP. USA Today carried the story Monday.

The "preverberations" the iPhone have caused can be seen in many of the announcements scheduled for the conference.

One is seen in the joint venture between Earthlink and Korea’s SK Telecom. They plan to unveil a new phone called Ocean which will sell for US$295. One design goal is to streamline the interaction between phone calls, text messaging, music, and Web access with a feature called "dual-slider."

"For making calls, the screen-side of the device can slide vertically to expose a number pad. For typing e-mail, text messages and instant messages, the Ocean can be turned horizontal and slide up along a different track to expose a full typewriter keyboard," Mr. Meyerson reported.

Other companies that are scrambling to make their cell phone easier to use are Samsung and Sony Ericsson.

Samsung’s lightweight "UpStage," was described as: "a "flip" phone, though not in the normal sense. The device is actually a two-sided candy bar that looks like a phone on one side and an MP3 music player on the other. A "flip" button on the phone’s edge is pressed to switch between the two sides."

Another benefit from the rethinking process appears to be a move by the industry group that oversees the Bluetooth standard to announce a simplification for the process of pairing two Bluetooth enabled devices. That change, however, won’t arrive until later this year.

"In Apple time, that means after the iPhone," Mr. Meyerson said.