Is Apple's iPhone Invincible?
In the past week, reports have surfaced saying that Apple has overtaken BlackBerry as the No. 2 smartphone provider. Yesterday, it was reported that Apple's iPhone had passed Motorola's RAZR as the most popular phone in the country. And today SquareTrade released a report that concludes that the iPhone has the lowest malfunction rate among smartphones, beating RIM's BlackBerry and Palm's Treo.
All of that got me thinking: Is the iPhone invincible? There were complaints about AT&T not allowing it to be tethered to notebooks to make mobile hot spots, but AT&T has announced that is in the works. The smartphone is still missing a cut-and-paste feature, which has been bemoaned. Receiving a text message with an image isn't possible. Those are just a couple common examples that, most likely, could easily be fixed.
BlackBerry doesn't seem to be taking this challenge for superiority lying down, however. RIM's smartphones are still highly anticipated, turn out good sales numbers for the company and, perhaps most importantly, have a stranglehold on enterprise users.
Let's face it, for business users, BlackBerry is where it's at, but the iPhone has gotten Microsoft Exchange capabilities, bringing the two, it would seem, into direct competition. BlackBerry has upped the ante with the coming release of the BlackBerry Storm -- a touchscreen interface that, while retaining everything about it that makes a BlackBerry useful in the workplace, is a direct shot at Apple's grip on the consumer market.
And we can't forget that Google has thrown its hat in the ring, as well, with the G1. The phone also features a touchscreen interface and a QWERTY keyboard, but its threat comes from its open source operating system. It's beginning to populate an app store with some application that iPhone users would undoubtedly like to get their hands on.
For the time being, the numbers don't lie: The iPhone has overtaken BlackBerry as the No. 2 smartphone in the marketplace. But those numbers shouldn't entirely be trusted.
Here's why: RIM still makes an above-average, solid product. BlackBerry users have come to trust and rely on their devices, and once the Storm finally arrives -- hopefully sometime this month -- the numbers could change pretty quickly. Plus, the BlackBerry Bold has just been released into the wild and adoption rates there could pick up as well.
Business is competition, however, and why leave good enough alone when you can take a shot at a competitor's core market? The BlackBerry Storm hasn't arrived yet, so it's hard to tell whether or not it will be compelling enough to lure users away from their iPhones -- but it could be, although the lack of Wi-Fi on the device is troubling.
Ultimately, though, Apple has shown itself to be resilient. The company has an uncanny ability to stick its finger right on the pulse of the consumer and put out a product that meets a need customers might not even realize they had. The iPhone is already on its second version, which gives it an advantage over BlackBerry's touchscreen device. And Apple is nothing if not agile, constantly reacting to the market while being proactive in its design and vision.
Whether or not the iPhone is invincible remains to be seen -- check back after the Storm has been on the market for a couple of months. But right now it seems like Apple's iPhone is certainly king of the hill.