What I think they're doing is completely dominating the platform wars by luring the most developers. This brings the most applications and with it the largest active audience. This takes into account iPod Touch users. Some of those iPod users might also have another smart phone. Users of other smart phones might also have a BlackBerry (for work for instance).

There is room for more than one smart phone out there. At least there is for what one might consider a traditional smartphone. The iPhone and some other products don't quite fit in that camp though. The traditional smartphone didn't make much of an impact in the larger consumer picture either.

I see the traditional (old) smartphone continuing to become more irrelevant as time passes. What will be left are mobile device platforms with a phone feature. Much more than a smart phone. And I expect that Apple will grow their business and dominate. It's not even a race. The whole big picture is already Apple's to lose. They'd really have to stumble hard to let their groundwork all fall apart.

I don't think Palm has much of a marketable image in the consumer space. They have very little name recognition and they're not going to be able to offer the content that is helping Apple to push its devices.

I think the BlackBerry and WinMo devices will be the smaller players, but I think palm is going to disappear completely. That is, products running on their own platform. I can see them staying in the handset business if they stick with someone else's platform (Android for the best shot).

Oh, I also forgot to rip on WebOS. Last year everyone was going ape-shit mad that the iPhone didn't have proper SDK. Now for this device a number of blogs seem to think developing essentially a web page as an application is a good idea. Yes, you get to install it on the phone (right?) but come on. Is this supposed to be a joke?

DEAD. IN. THE. WATER. I'll be flabbergasted if Palm can turn the Pre into any kind of profit. I mean, they may never recover from all the money they likely paid the blogs for all their recent coverage. I swear this little thing is getting more attention than Android did.