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The iPhone was first released nearly three years ago. The phone, and Apple, revolutionized the market and has since changed the way people think about mobile phones.
Since that time, the mobile phone market has almost become a game of catch-up, trying to reach the pedestal that the iPhone has been placed upon.
Mobile phones have come and gone, many labeled as “iPhone killers,” but so far none of them have been able to put a scratch in the multimedia Apple smartphone.
Some companies, most notably Google with it’s Android phones, have made headway, but the iPhone still remains both a status symbol and the epitome of smartphones.
More recently, Microsoft has begun to release it’s own phones in an attempt to compete with the iPhone and the smartphone market.
Neither of these companies, unfortunately, have been able to reach the usability or popularity of the iPhone.
Despite its already significant following, the iPhone could be approaching a new level of unprecedented success in the mobile phone market.
This year marks the end of AT&T’s exclusive contract with Apple to sell and provide service for the iPhone.
With this knowledge in mind, an increased number of rumors have begun surfacing indicating that the phone will be available in the coming year on the Verizon and Sprint networks, with some, such as MSNBC, reporting the release possibly as early as this summer.
Yesterday, Web sites such as Engadget have reported that details on the iPhone OS 4 will be released by Apple on Thursday at 10 a.m., just five days after the release of the highly anticipated iPad.
If these forthcoming details were to include an expansion of iPhone sales to Verizon Wireless, with 91.2 million subscribers, and to Sprint Nextel, with 41.8 million subscribers, it would nearly double the amount of potential iPhone users in the market.
This, coupled with the currently questionable AT&T coverage, especially in areas of high 3G traffic, and the possibility of that coverage being extended with the two new networks, make this expansion even more highly anticipated by consumers and necessary for Apple.
If these rumors are, in fact, true, the iPhone will only continue to expand on its already significant head start and pull further ahead in the mobile phone market.
Personally, I have no qualms with the expansion of coverage.
If Apple’s competitors, however, take no action in response to the expected expansion and improvement of the iPhone, many will fall in its wake.
I see the iPhone as an incentive for competition rather than a threat to the market. Arguably, the iPhone could be one of the best phones available on the market today.
But it also provides the carrot for other companies to follow and attempt to reach.
Products such as the Android and Microsoft phones, while behind for now, should be working vigorously to reach the point that the iPhone has already reached and continues to improve upon.
In time, competitors will likely reach the level that the iPhone is on, and most likely surpass it, but for now, and for the near future, the horizon is masked by Apple and its iPhone.
