Apple’s iPhone has certainly received a mobile classic status since its announcement at the Macworld Conference a little more than 12 months ago. A whole slew of products with similar working concepts have been announced in the year that passed so check out what other touchscreen products that mainly utilizes the fingers rather than a stylus there are!

Samsung has 3 such announcements for now, 2 of which you can already buy overseas in the form of the F700 smartphone and the stylo mylo Armani P520. The F490, a 5 megapixel LG Viewty challenger is coming soon and will also be packed with the gorgeous Croix interface of the other two. F700 sports a sliding full QWERTY keyboard, 3.2” display and 3 megapixel autofocus camera. No wifi though. Pity. But look how gorgeous! To prove that Samsung’s really produced a one-arm operable touchscreen phone, all 3 models don’t even come with a stylus.

Much praise has already been heaped on the Prada’s design and Viewty’s 5 megapixel snapper, so LG’s next full touchscreen product will now focus on functionality. It sports Windows Mobile 6 OS, a 2 megapixel autofocus camera and wifi! And all in a package the size of a Prada too, which makes it yummylicious for any tech geek. A modified WM6 OS allows some functions to be operated by fingers alone but there’s no escaping the use of a stylus sometimes though.

HTC provided the first smart phone alternative to the iPhone in the form of the very stylish Touch and now there’s an updated but uglier version, the Touch Cruise. The modified WM6 home page (TouchFLO) still features but upgrades like GPS receiver, a faster processor and 3G have been thrown in. With possibly all the connectivity features included in this powerhouse, maybe a sacrifice in the form of looks can be forgiven for road warriors.

Motorola’s ailing mobile phone arm actually came up with a widely finger-operable phone a couple of months before the iPhone was announced. The ROKR E6 was marketed as a Linux based entertainment phone with Realplayer, FM radio, 3.5mm audio jack and cheap SD card expansion loaded.

The W960i and P1i may have a numerical keypad and QWERTY keyboard respectively, but Sony Ericsson’s offerings actually adds to the usefulness of its almost finger-operable Symbian UIQ OS. W960i is a more direct competitor for the iPhone with its 8GB hard drive. Unfortunately as a fashion statement and the coolness of its touchscreen interface, SE won’t be giving Apple engineers any sleepless nights yet.

Finally, Nokia. Surprisingly the number 1 mobile phone maker has only produced 1 touchscreen phone ever and the iPhone’s strongest rival yet may be appearing soon. The Symbian S60 touch OS has already been shown and we’re now just waiting for the finished product to hit the stores. Keep your fingers crossed, because if Nokia’s presentation at Nokia World ‘07 is any indication, Apple had better be working on iPhone version 2 already.