Rambling with Hands0n

The past few years have been dominated by one handset above all others, the Apple iPhone. And rightly so, I would contend. The device and it's OS have set the bar at a height that other manufacturers are struggling to reach, and have been since its launch. But the point of this blog is not to recap on history.

As we draw to the end of 2009 I am taken with the recent number of new handsets coming out that are vying for the crown held by the iPhone. Each new iteration of handset seems to be taking the game closer to Apple, but so far no manufacturer has quite made it. And the answer as to why not is quite subtle really. In a word, it is the Experience that no other manufacturer has been able to match, yet.

An iPhone is not simply a handset; it is also an operating system and a cloud network that blends together seamlessly. Everything you do "just works", and does so remarkably well and integrated. Apple have managed to perfect the symbiosis between iPhone, Cloud and Mac or PC like none before it, nor since to date. But the race is hotting up.

Firstly, I have to make a mental note to disregard the Palm Pre. This Cuckoo of a handset is a cheat, in my opinion. While it does sport the remarkable WebOS it simply copies the hardware design any number of other smartphones. But for me the worst element of the Palm Pre is its attempted use of iTunes as its platform to manage media. Arguments rage about this, but at the end of the day iTunes is proprietary Apple, it is offered as such and that is that. Palm would have been better off to make use of Double Twist than playing silly games that will only end up hurting their own customers.

Windows Mobile 6.5 has turned up a few interesting handsets. I personally have never been much of a fan of WM, but the recent Acer neo Touch has made me sit up and pay some attention to this platform. I do not know what they have done to make it function so quick, but it is slicker than a very slick thing. If this is the future for WM on modern and capable hardware then it is in with some chance. And we have to keep an eye on the Redmond giant - they are not going to let Apple get away with all of the spoils. The MS Marketplace for Windows Mobile is due out in November 2009, shortly after WM 6.5, to take on the App Store and Google Market. So Windows Mobile is serious about taking on the competition.

And then we have Google Android which, at the time of writing this blog, has 12 handsets either out or poised to be released any day now. Now this may not be very many, certainly not in comparison to WM. But Android is not a mature OS, manufacturers have been busy maintaining their business while preparing Android handsets to add to their portfolio. But I do believe that we must expect to see Google Android devices grow rapidly in number during 2010. Also, too, there must be an increase in the performance of Android handsets. The OS is very capable but the hardware, and possibly the OS code efficiency, are resulting in handsets that are a bit awkward to use. Most noticeably they can suffer from dreadful lag in use. The HTC Magic is a case in point, delightful but maddening with its OS lags and freezes if you have anything much running in background.

And so into 2010 - the year is destined to be peppered with new devices, using new and improved processors is likely to be key to performance (TI's chipset is showing big performance gains against Qualcomm). New versions of OS are to be expected also. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft change their model to match OS X and Android. Or will they persist with their incumbent model where new versions demand more money, or perhaps completely new handsets also?

I forsee an exciting technological year for those that are into this stuff. It has been fairly quiet for the past two years in that respect. 2010 is a likely to be a great year for a mobile contract to come up for renewal.