There is a lot of hype about Google phone release (Nexus One?) which sound like it is going to be an awesome phone. However I don't really see it as an IPhone killer. The other 2 billion cell phones on the planet should be worried though.
Phones?
Because there are more phones than computers and as the data networks grow we should see the services that we build for our applications will start to get heavily used by not just the web applications but also by mobile applications.
Android soon to be the 800 pound gorilla.
This year we will see 50 Android phones which will dominate the market place as far as diversity of hardware. I think within 18 months we will see a $50 Android phone with a contract and within 24 months $0 with a contract. This will be a major boon to application distribution and since Android is an open platform anyone individual or company can distribute there software on it. This low cost smart phone what is open for hardware and software evolution will allow for many killer apps.
What Palm & Blackberry of the world?
I read a rumor that Blackberry was going to get a decent browser in the summer maybe? Well it is a bit late to be playing catch up. Palm WebOS is great technical innovation. If Palm and Blackberry merged then they might have a competitive advantage with the user base and excellent technology. I don't think it would be to difficult to constrain WebOS to whatever corporate environments love to lock out there users. However I am not holding my breath.
But the iPhone is "cooler"
The iPhone was a game changer technically which is not unusual for Apple. Nor is it unusual for Apple not to be able to dominate the market with the exception of the iPod. Personal computer to the digital camera Apple has innovated a lot of products however have not been able to maintain market share. I think iPhone will continue to grow and mature but will not capture the extremely large market that exists for cell phones.
As I have been hacking with Android I have noticed that these little applications tend to communicate with lots of little requests. GPS, messaging ect. The wireless data networks are about to take a pounding and so are the web applications/services that these mobile platforms are using. The one thing is for sure is that things will be different than I expect.
