There is little argument that the iPhone is the best smartphone on the market. With 85,000 application available at the AppStore, there is significantly more interest in this mobile platform then any other. The iPhone has fundamentally changed how users interact with their mobile devices. The last year has seen explosive growth. Right now, the iPhone is the phone to beat. But I don’t think it will last…

1) My first point will represent my weakest. AT&T sucks. Period. The service is abysmal. I’ve heard numbers that say 30% of New York calls end in a drop. My NY experience has likely been around there, not to mention all the text/voicemail delays and straight up service outages. The point is AT&T cant handle its current subscribers, let alone continuous growth. In their defense, no one could have predicted that iPhone users would consume six times more data than typical mobile users and eat up all the bandwidth. This doesn’t only affect iPhone users, all AT&T subscribers suffer.

Apparently AT&T is spending $17 billion dollars this year to upgrade their infrastructure. This sounds impressive, except last year they spent something like $20 billion and every other year they spend a ton of money as well. So don’t be fooled by this large sum. Whats interesting is that AT&T is always playing catch up. Years ago when the GSM network was released, a ton of their subscribers jumped ship because of the poor service. It took them years before they get things sorted out. Now it’s happening all over again. If they don’t get their act together I think you will start seeing subscribers run to the exit signs. Keep in mind all second generation iPhone users are still under a two year contract till at least June. It will be interesting to see what happens as contracts start to expire and the market starts to offers iPhone alternatives.

2) Apple appears to not be learning from their mistakes. I’m talking about the PC wars from back in the 80’s. Long story short, Apple lost because they wanted to control everything. You are seeing the same thing happen with the iPhone. They don’t want to give up control and open up the platform. I’m not even talking open source. But developers and users don’t feel like they have control of their devices. Apple just doesn’t trust it’s users. Because of Apple and AT&T we may never see the full potential of the device because they hamper innovation so much. To be fair its not just AT&T, nothing is worse for innovation then mobile network providers.

There hasn’t yet been a back lash from the developer community yet. But you can clearly hear there frustration. The reason people are putting up with it is because there is no where else to go. Right now if you want to build mobile apps, you go where the people are. And the people are on the iPhone. Plus no other platform has an equal equivalent to the AppStore. But the AppStore isn’t what iTunes is to music, it can be reproduced and potentially successful.

3) Some predictions say Android will be the most popular mobile OS within 5 years. Most popular aside, I predict there will be more Android devices then iPhone devices within two years. Android took 5% of the smartphone market share 3 months after launch. As far as I’m concerned the g1 was Googles way of tasting the market. Now that there is interest, I foresee an outbreak of Android devices… There are over 15 announced and rumored Android devices coming out in the next 6 – 12 months.

I’m not predicting that any one handset will out perform the iPhone, although I’m super excited for the Motorola Droid. I am predicting that Android devices as a whole will eventually consume more market share then the iPhone. More devices + more carriers + more countries = more potential customers. If things continue as they are, I think Android is positioned to eventually rival Nokia as the default smartphone OS. Once developers realize theres is or will be more Android users. You will start to see significant more development and innovation for the Android OS. The only way I see the iPhone fighting for a contending spot is by dropping their bad habits. Learn from your mistakes and stop being an over protected parent that doesn’t trust its kids. And for gods sake get on some other networks, stat.