Thursday, June 12, 2008

With iPhone 3G, Next Cellphone Battle Will Be Apple vs. Google

Sure, Apple's next-gen iPhone still looks pretty, and the iClones will follow from the old guard of handsdet makers. But even if Steve Jobs is playing nice with the cellphone market, PM's resident geek says it's the software, stupid. Here's how Google Android could really take down iPhone 2.0 in the upcoming code wars. Apple didn't reinvent the phone. But it came close with the iPhone, creating an entirely new breed of mobile device—and promptly selling 6 million of them. In other words, the first iPhone wasn't the Sputnik of cellphones, but it may have been the Apollo 11.
A year later, as Apple launches its second-generation iPhone, the competition must realize that time is running out. If someone doesn't build a comparable touchscreen phone—right now—then the iPhone could become more than a historic success story. It will be unassailable, and the concept of an iPhone killer will become as mythical and useless as that other holy grail of consumer electronics: the iPod killer.
While companies like Samsung, LG and Motorola are used to fighting it out over handset design and built-in features, dutifully serving a range of niche customers while stumbling toward the next RAZR, beating the iPhone will mean excelling in an arena where phone makers have generally failed: software.

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