Big in 2010 – 4 anything but the iPhone
There is likely to be a new iPhone some time during 2010. It may prove to be a huge leap on from the 3GS, but we’ll have to wait and see. It is sure however to address the iPhone’s two Achilles’ heels – poor quality camera and limited battery life.
No matter what response it gets – and with Apple products there is always a stage when the public gets a little indifferent to them – think iMac and iPod – next year will be all about iPhone rivals. Now the last few months have sees several phones that technologically much superior to the Apple handset like the Motorola Milestone (Droid), HTC Hero and even the Nokia X6. However none of those phones or brands can match the amazing app ecosphere that has grown up around the iPhone.
Take the X6 for example, an amazing phone, but try and find a decent free Twitter app on the Nokia Ovi store! There may come a point next year though when the rivals app selection starts to catch up with the iPhone and when that happens the iPhone might start to look a little like old news.
Apple has always been smart at moving the goalposts each time its rival start catching up. So the iPod morphed into the iPhone etc., This time round maybe the big move is all about the iTablet or the iSlate or iGuide. It is just a theory but the iPhone’s limited success in countries outside of the US and UK (some of which is down to difficulties with mobile phone operators) might mean that Apple wants to focus on a product that isn’t influenced by network providers etc.
As for the rivals, the Nexus One from Google looks like the start of an amazing hardware range, Motorola only needs to make a few amends to its Milestone/Dext to deliver a world beating handset and Nokia, still the world’s number one maker, is promising one landmark handset by the end of the year. Let’s not forget that the Koreans Samsung and LG are capable of real innovation too. It is going to be an interesting year and I guess we’ll see how it likely to develop at the MWC in Barcelona in February
