Sometime this week Apple will be releasing it's long rumored iPhone 2.0 (http://www.apple.com/iphone), the big question for a lot of people will be should I get one? The smartphone market is really getting exciting this year, Apple is clearly the leader of the pack with the RIM Blackberry nipping at its heels. The Blackberry has the clear advantage of being established in the market, it works well and is very easy to pick up and use, I have even seen people with no tech savvy using this device which is why it has such a mass appeal in the market place.

If you have ever used a Blackberry, one of the most frustrating things about it is it's lack of plugins, such as the ability to open a simple PDF or Word document, with the iPhone this is a simple task. The biggest advantage that the iPhone has going for it is that the software that powers it is Mac OS X (http://apple.com/macosx)  this operating system has been built with its foundations in UNIX, which has been around for over 30 years, is stable and secure, comparable to a steel door on your house. On top of that rock solid foundation they built a user interface (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_interface) that is beautiful and at first touch you already know how to use it.

The iPhone uses the same core software that comes on millions of Mac's, and this is where the iPhone becomes really attractive, not only for you and I, but for the developers. Apple has an excellent enviroment for people to build programs, and those same programs with some effort can be translted onto this device. What that means for us is that we can get programs very easily on this device from people who have been buidling applications for computers for a long time. There is no doubt that the Blackberry is an excellent device, and it has served the market very well. RIM has some tricks up it's sleeve with new devices coming out this year, including a device that you can touch just like the iPhone and iPod Touch. I think that the Blackberry has succeeded becuase people need to comminicate on a very basic level, and if you compare these devices to plain white rice, while it will sustain you it will not fulfill you. I think Apple is about to serve up some wonderful tasting dishes in the coming year, but will they be to anyones taste, that is the 30 billion dollar question.