The Smartphone wars are heating up. And soon we will see clear winners and losers in the race for superiority.
Let’s face it folks — the Smartphone war is really a 2 man race: the Apple iPhone and the Google Android. All the others, including the RIM Blackberry are quickly slipping into oblivion. Why, you ask? Because today’s “Smartphone” is nearly everything but an actual phone. The phone portion of the device is probably the least used feature nowadays, with users requiring texting, Internet access, video and music playback, and now the all important app as their “must have” features over all else. But to date, only Apple and Google offer apps. And Apple was given such an enormous head start in the Smartphone game, everyone else is playing catch-up.
When Apple invented the iPhone back in 2007, most companies laughed at the prospect of a touchscreen device, betting the farm that consumer’s would be disinterested in anything besides a flip-phone or other handheld device with a smaller screen and tactical buttons. Boy, where they wrong! (Incidentally, tech companies also laughed at the idea of the Apple iPod when it first came out, and were wrong about that too). For anyone who still uses a Smartphone as just a “phone,” perhaps a flip or button phone is good enough. But for most everyone else, the all-in-one device complete with texting, Internet access, music, video, camera, games, and tons of interchangeable apps for just about anything you can imagine, is nonnegotiable.
By 2011, look for the iPhone and Android to control roughly 80% of the Smartphone market. Blackberry will come in a distant third, while all the others will likely join Palm in disappearing out of contention all together.
