The war for the hearts, minds, and hands of the wireless masses continues, this time with a new entrant (actually a duo) vying for an initial foothold (handhold?) in the ever-dynamic market for smartphones. Or, perhaps more accurately, it has taken on a new angle due to the new competitor.
Never mind the Samsung Instinct. Keep walking past the Palm Treo Pro. Hey, just ignore the expensive “feature phones”, the nutty Windows Mobile clonies, and the past-generation smartphones. For the price-performance point, just go straight to the current generation of smartphones (which the marketing folks euphemistically are terming “next generation” (and even I was guilty of the looseness of terminology once 
)).
Apple iPhone 3G (AT&T)
The Apple [AAPL] iPhone 3G is now the elder stateman of the current-gen smartphones. It is also, by far, the frontrunner in the wireless war, by virtue of brand recognition, timing, and production scale. It also has received the vast majority of public scrutiny, and it has managed to successfully weather both its own past successes, the bugs that popped up since its release, the current economic downturn, and its competition.
Even better, since its initial launch, the product has dropped in price under the current AT&T subsidy, and the network performance has improved, both due to a phone software update and incremental 3G network upgrades. Couple these with the product’s inherent strengths, and you’re looking at a very compelling product. Touch screen, “learning” touch typing, plethora of free vetted applications, iPod functionality, Wi-Fi as well as 3G data transmission, an established development platform with APIs, stylish sleek profile… yep, it’s all good.
HTC Dream/G1 (T-Mobile)
The HTC Dream, branded as the T-Mobile [DT] G1 in the U.S. and other parts of the world, is the infamous first Google [GOOG] “GPhone” implementation released into the wild.
Think “anti-iPhone”, and the G1 may be quite close: it has a physical slider keyboard; it has a definite thickness and blockiness to it, instead of the sleek elongated iPhone design; and while it has a sizable display screen, it is not a tactile touch screen like the iPhone 3G’s. It also does not have quite the same polished UI that approaches that of the iPhone. On the other hand, it has the backing of Google, and it includes several Google mobile applications that have been tailored for the G1. Let’s also not discount the allure of developing for a somewhat open source device platform like the G1, as well as the potential for creating and maintaining an integration between Android devices of varying structural formats.
It should be noted that there does not seem to be that massive flood of other Android phones that were expected by year’s end, or at the latest, the beginning of next year. At least, no new or even revised commitments.
RIM BlackBerry Storm (Verizon)
This promising competitor has not yet been released, but we’ve already seen some details publicized, including the launch date and pricing. The smartphone is the latest of RIM’s [RIMM] offerings, and it will be subsidized by Verizon [VZ], its exclusive wireless carrier– at least, for now.
A clicking-button touch screen that is not a plasma membrane, so that when you’re “typing” along the screen, it is essentially one giant button? Rotating (portrait/landscape) visualization on the touch screen? Revamped UI? RIM has tried to take a few pages from Apple’s playbook and “one-up” a bit. It is questionable whether having the entire screen click in order to capture user finger impressions is a good thing… it may hamper fast typists and pro-level users. But it’s still a BlackBerry device, so developing applications for it is somewhat similar to that of previous BlackBerry types, including using the Java variant for coding.
Guess Who’s Not Invited to the Party?
So, seeing the three competitors discussed above, you may be wondering: who’s not represented? It’s somewhat obvious: there’s Palm [PALM] the manufacturer, and there’s Sprint [S] the wireless carrier. Not surprisingly, these two have partnered in the past with their own subsidized phone combinations. And certainly, the Palm Centro has been a commercial success this year; however, it does appear as if the target audience that Sprint and Palm are aiming for is no longer among the population that everybody else wants. 
What’s Next
Given the economic climate, the prevailing thought concerning high-ticket tech purchases is that many companies are not loosening their purse strings to allow the rank and file to acquire the smartphones; these products are going to the limited to tech-savvy consumers and the tech-heavy professionals instead.
It is clear that, with the continued cost-cutting observed across the various industries, this is unlikely to change soon. This also means that every single sale and accompanying service sign-up is much more valuable, since every active user becomes a walking billboard for future sales. It also means that newer, more cost-effective smartphones are needed to capture mainstream interest.
