Unless you’ve been living in a cave you have probably heard by now that Apple will release their newest iPhone – the 3G [S] (S is for Speed!) – on Friday, June 19th, 2009.  With the 3G [S] Apple has whittled down the list of annoyances that has prevented some from jumping on the bandwagon.  Cut & Paste, MMS, full-phone Search, a wide-screen keyboard, a Compass, twice the speed, an autofocus camera, a smudge-resistant screen and better battery life are all certainly impressive advancements.  (The only remaining “annoyances” with the iPhone are the non-user-replaceable battery, the AT&T contract lock-in, and the lack of a physical keyboard.)

But is this enough to push the remaining holdouts over the edge?

I’ve had my Blackberry for several years, and it has been a very good phone.  Combined with Blackberry Enterprise Server it is an extremely reliable phone and “just works.”  But it’s also EXTREMELY BORING.  So I’m going to make a startling statement here (you heard it here first:)

Apple has WON the Smartphone Wars with the iPhone.

Yes, Microsoft will continue to push their Windows Mobile phones towards larger enterprises.  Yes, Google will continue to toy around with their Android platform with T-Mobile.  And yes, of course, Palm will continue to barely hang in there by a thread with their (very impressive) Pre.  But by and large, Apple has an excellent product, has already sold tens of millions of them, and most importantly has the most vibrant and active development community of all smartphone platforms–with over ONE BILLION applications already downloaded from the iTunes ‘App Store.’

BlackBerry will continue to play an important role in enterprises who need secure, reliable access to data from many different internal sources.  But by and large the iPhone is turning into the Kleenex/Jell-O/Band-Aid of mobile phones – I wouldn’t be surprised if the lexicon changes in a few years and we’re talking about “BlackBerry iPhones” and “Palm iPhones.”  “Oh, it’s not an original iPhone?  It’s just some knockoff?”

So what does this mean for business?  Expect widespread adoption of the iPhone by employees who have been holding out.  It won’t be a matter of whether or not you allow iPhones to access corporate data–you’ll be forced into offering iPhone friendly services.  With a license from Microsoft for ActiveSync this shouldn’t be too difficult, though it is not always as foolproof as Blackberry Enterprise Server (but I fully expect Microsoft and Apple to continue ironing out the remaining kinks.)

My first iPhone should show up this weekend at my doorstep – I’ll have a full review in a few weeks on how well it’s integrating with our systems at the office.

By the way, here’s a great review (with pictures!) from Gizmodo:

http://gizmodo.com/5293388/iphone-3gs-review

Filed under: mobile, 3G, 3GS, Apple, iPhone