Burning Lemons

The smartphone world has once again become a hive of activity and public interest following the release and success of the iPhone and T-Mobile’s Android based G1 platform. This post is a mini-predictions segment looking at where i expect the smartphone market to go over the next 12-18 months. For the sake of simplicity I have ignored the lower end market for simple mobile phones as while they are huge part of the businesses of companies like Nokia and Motorola the technology in them is less likely to change very quickly and the developments occuring in the smarthphone field now will likely trickle down over the next few years in much the same way that cameras did.

The Operating Systems

Smartphones will begin to centre around three major operating systems (for the sake of simplicity I have ignored the Blackberry os, a more business oriented system)
Apple’s iPhone OS

The Open Handset Alliance’s Androad Platform

The Symbian Foundation’s Symbian OS

iPhone

Apple will be the only company that successfully controls its own platform from end to end. No other major player in the phone market has the clout or sheer hard nose to operate the type of model that Apple does and still find partners to market, sell and use its products. Apple’s previous successes and its loyal and growing fanbase will allow it to hold the upper hand in negotiations in a way other manufacturers could only dream of. It’s model of refining existing ideas, already done to huge success with multi-touch and The App and Mobile iTunes stores will continue to pay dividends. The iPhone will continue to lack features that small groups of users consider essential including MMS, stereo bluetooth and Java and will contiune to be one of the most locked-down phones available but its ease-of-use and the sheer hype Apple have managed to build around the device will ensure a successful and profitable future barring any major flaws such as a rampant iPhone virus which given Apple’s current required pre-approval for all Apps installed on non-jailbroken phones looks unlikely. Sales will continue to grow as the iPhone is introduced to more territories and Apple’s one carrier per country/territory policy is withdrawn either voluterally or forceably (as occured in France where a court decided that Apple’s decision to only allow Orange to sell the iPhone was illegal even though unlocked models are available)

Android

The Google-backed Android platform has secured plenty of hype despite technical problems which resulted in the first phone running the operating system (The well, if not amazingly recieved T-Mobile G1) being released about 6 months behind schedule. Android’s decision to choose an open platform makes the chance of a virus striking the platform more likely than with the iPhone and a bug found in the platform meaning that all input to the phone was interpreted as system commands (since rectified) was hardly the greatest start for the platform. However the availability of the operating system on multiple phones will increase the number of consumers who could end up using an Android powered phone (someone who insists on a physical Qwerty keyboard for example could quite easilly select and Android powered phone that meets there needs but would be unable to use an iPhone). The medium-term success of the Android platform depends on a wide range of products being brought to market relatively quickly so that development of applications for the phone can continue. A little homepage advertisment from Google probably wouldn’t hurt either (Homepage advertising helped push Google’s browser Chrome onto the desktops of many non-geeks).

Symbian Foundation

Little information is currently available about Nokia’s if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em effort. The Symbian foundation only really got going at the beginning of December when Nokia completed its acquisition of the parts of Symbian it didn’t already own. The integration of the Symbian teams into Nokia is not expected to be completed until March at the earliest. This means that we would be unlikely to see any phones before about June 2010 as although the code is already there (unlike for Apple and Android who started from scratch) it needs to be checked for closed-source components. On top of that the current Symbian OS and the interfaces such as S60 which run on top of it are beginning to look long in the tooth and in need of a rewrite. That said Nokia has just finished work on its Nokia N97 its first touchscreen smartphone (pictured for lack of anything else) which looks promising although knowing Nokia it will all be in the execution (The N95 took two major software updates to become the phone it was meant to be)
So having had a look at the state of the operators what looks likely. Well my wrtings above do not take into account the economic crisis which will porbably reduce the demand for smartphones particularly phones such as the iPhone and N95 which do not offer the features required by businesses and are aimed at tech-savvy consumers. However presuming Android does what it is meant too, the operators play along and Nokia finally pushes a Symbian Foundation product out we can look forward to a future with greater choice and openess for consumers