State of the Phone Union Part 2

Iphone 4 drops; moves 3 or 4 million units and issues arise.

First things first: We all know Apple's not gonna match Droid or anyone else with their arms race, so in a battle of fan boys they can say their phone is 3 to 4 times more powerful or stronger than the iphone, but do not count apple out just yet:

Let's begin in the innovation department:

Mobile Video chat. A few years ago, LG came out with a phone on AT&T that allowed for video chat. The interesting part is that it wasn't a half-assed job, it only needed a few tweaks, but don't forget that the phone wasn't a smart-phone it was a consumer - level- I hope high school kids soak it up- type of phone. But the problem is that LG STOPPED developing the idea. So about 2 years ago, there is a mobile web-cam site, for iphone [and later droid] phones. Fast forward to 2010. Now many phones have dual cameras. Which means mobile web chat is a strong reality.

How everyone stacks up:

Blackberry: None, in fact they don't have any new phones, other than the pearl 3g. The pearl was a good look as women found the other blackberry's to be a bit bulky, and since all they did was repackage the pearl and make it faster. Their whole goal is to move units while everyone else fights on the world front. Honestly, it'll buy them maybe one or two years but soon they'll be in last place.

Iphone 4: Facetime. The fact that it's wifi only, means that its friendly to the jailbreak community, [yay!] the fact that it's iphone 4 only is ok, as they move about 10 million units a year so you'll have a multitude of friends to chat with soon. Facetime also cancels out the older iphones because who wants a phone that can't chat. The fact that its iphone to iphone is just a shot at BBM, the only "king" of the cell phone wars.

Droid: Skype + some other unknown app. They matched [and upped] some of the dual camera's on their phones. The first thing they said was Skype. Now Skype is major, but they missed the whole purpose of Facetime. Yes, the fact that you can hit someone up on their phone from your main system is great, [at press time, no word if Iphone can't do the same, but it is assumed that it will given the nature of their jailbreak community]But, Droid has no droid only features, in fact the particular manufacturer is the only unique thing about the droid OS. [MotoBlur for example]

Palm: Nothing new so far, everyone else pretty much stole their multi app idea, and motoblur also stole their multi network updates. The only big thing they did was move from Sprint to Verizon.

Windows Mobile: The jury's still out as windows 7 mobile hasn't been released yet...

My choice: I'm still on the fence. Over the past few months I've switched phones and had a chance to play with 3 of the major systems.
- Blackberry lacks personal applications, plus almost all their phones [save the storm] have below average sized screens so watching movies is close to useless.
- Droid is buggy, and since not too many droid phones are getting updates, there are a lot of buggy phones out there [ to date, I've had 4 motorola cliqs] Plus something I've noticed is almost every droid user has almost the same applications.
- Windows Mobile. Hadn't had a chance to truly program the phone but I will soon.

Verdict: I'm on the fence, I'm leaning towards iphone 4, but it depends on what droid and windows mobile have to offer. This is certainly a hot summer.

State of the Phone Union Part 1

Now before Fall Out Boy begins to chime in, lets cover the bases:

I am a smart phone fanatic, it started way back in high school, I had the original Palm Treo, [it was a hand-me-down but soo...] Soon it grew to the first few generations of HTC's, and even the Samsung blackjack. I had quite a few blackberry's in my day. [I remember when Sprint/blackberry required a business licence for service.] Fast forward to 2010:

The smartphone market is every changing, every growing but you know that.

By the numbers:

Blackberry is the king, strong numbers, since the 90's. Not to mention when they first went "public" that made them hotter. Plus with partnerships with smaller cell carriers, they "bully" lower model cellphones.

Palm has been in the game the longest - but the only innovation they bring is a multiple application OS, which fails due to sub-par battery life.

Iphone is the bully on the block.

Droid is the next "rising" thing but it's motto is "Everything Iphone isn't I am..." pretty poor choice of words but smart.

Nokia usually has high level phones, but no carrier picks them up so they are too expensive for the casual user
HTC is playing two sides of the phone race, still using Windows Mobile, and also Droid.

Samsung is........there, 8 mp camera but lacking everywhere else.

Now, to rearrange that data into what the average Joe on up will care about:

Apple's philosophy is squeezing the most out of the least amount of power. Beautiful all things considered, plus the rest of the mobile world revolves around the keynote schedule.

Droid is flooding the market with multiple phones, from lower in [Motorola Cliq/ Samsung Behold 2] to the Big Arms [Droid,EVO] which means they should put a phone in twice as many people as any other Operation System.

Windows Mobile, [yes gasp!] Came back strong, plus the world is anticipating Windows 7 Mobile.

Blackberry, only really had one major innovation, the Storm. The fact that they picked smaller cell phone providers, while slightly upgrading current models explains why they have no over the top announcements, on the business side, smart. On the other side not flashy.

[Now...Chime Fall Out Boy]