BARCELONA -- Copying a few pages from the playbook of Apple's iPhone strategy, which brings many of the powers of the Internet to mobile phones, is no way to beat the computer interloper at its game, observers say.

But that's exactly what many of the world's biggest handsets makers are trying to do with new copycat phones and services that ape key features of the iPhone.

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the world's biggest annual trade show for the wireless industry, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is everywhere and nowhere. The company avoids such events, preferring to unveil products at its own venues.

The handset business will produce more than a billion phones this year, but is suffering a crisis of confidence brought on by sharply changing business models that has only been exaggerated by the global economic slump.

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