Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Is 2009 the Year Apple Must Fight to Stay On Top?!


Ok, so, the 'iPhone' has nearly been out a full two years come this June and has thus clearly made it's point that it is here to dominate the cell phone industry as we once knew it. Forget your 'G1' or your 'Storm' as those are failed attempts of the past, ok ok, so maybe not failed but 'entry level gunners', how about that?

Let's get to the real guts.

CES a few weeks ago revealed the 'Palm Pre', some other gidgets and gadgets, a watch...ya know, all that other junk. This new Palm has garnered a LOT of attention from newbie smartphone users to dedicated iphone junkies. I'm going to go ahead and just say it, "The 'Pre' is the beginning of the war to come this year".

I'd say in the next 5 months we are going to see a lot of REAL competitors to not only battle the 'iPhone' this year but the battle will grow to catch up to the 'Pre' as well! HTC supposedly has a 'Pre' killer in place to possibly be revealed at Mobile World Congress (MWC) the middle of next month and the damned 'Pre' isn't even being sold yet! There are whispers of Dell joining the game this year as well, MWC maybe?

But back to the real heart of this story. Apple.

What will Apple do? Does Apple need to do anything? Is Apple going to do anything?
They must know that the major players have caught a good whiff and are out for blood and by god, they might just pull out the lethal blow!

The much hyped 'Pre' is supposed to be out the first half of 2009. Where will Palm take risk? Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference (WWDC) will, we'll assume, come in June. Will Palm sit and wait it out until then or will they let the 'Pre' out of the gates early? What would be the Pro's and Con's of either decision by Palm? There could be several different scenarios. Release the 'Pre' in March and if it tanks I'd say Apple has nothing to worry about. Release the 'Pre' in June around WWDC and well, that would be rather interesting.

I believe Apple (and maybe this is just what I wish =P), will have to bring it big in June. 'iPhone Pro' anyone? Quad Core's, 32gigs, 5mp camera, more RAM, faster processor...ok well maybe not the Quad Core. This new Palm is supposedly pretty powerful, some are saying more powerful than the current 'iPhone' and I'm not pulling out any spec sheets here but just going off of the half dozen reviews I've read so far. Apple will not need to sit idle.

Fact is, there are contenders coming down that isle and they will be stepping in that ring in the months to come and Apple and Steve Jobs (bless his soul), you had better be ready come summer time! Maybe this could be Tim Cook's shining moment to show Apple is still innovative and has vision without Mr. Jobs around.

All I know is this is going to be a fun next 4 or 5 months and I'm glad to be along for the ride. =)

A few notable cell phone related events coming up:
Mobile World Conference 2/16/09
International CTIA Wireless 4/1/09
World Wide Developers Conference 6/??/09

1 comment:

  1. Palm announcing something at MWC next month.

    http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/21/palm-announcing-something-at-mwc-next-month-gsm-pre-likely/

    I'm tellin' ya! Watch out now!

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