For many years the smartphone market has been dominated by two players, Blackberry and Windows Mobile.
Though Blackberry has enjoyed much success, Blackberry's newest offering, the Storm, has been widely panned by critics and users alike as being a rather ill-conceived mess. The same has been said about nearly all Windows mobile phones.
And so people were left with two options, neither of which offered much freedom.
Then, in a flurry of activity, several things happened at once:
- The iPhone was launched. It is a sleek, hip, net-enabled smartphone. On the surface, it appears to be everything anyone could ever want. But, it is tied to a proprietary app store, and requires iTunes to work. (And that leaves us linux dorks out on our butts.)
- Google announced Android. Android isn't a phone, but rather an operating system for phones, a free, Linux-based replacement for Windows Mobile. The only phone with Android on the market today is the G1 from T-Mobile. But oh, what a phone it is.
- Palm, rising from the ashes of five years with only one new product, announces the Palm Pre, boasting a new and improved Web OS. And, though Web OS isn't compatible with older Palm apps, it looks promising.
