The big news about iPhone OS 2.0, due this summer, will be how much time Apple has been distracted from ‘making the best phone ever’ to ‘kicking RIM’s ass’.
The stuff we know about iPhone OS 2.0 is that it supports VPNs (PPTP, L2TP/IPSec), SecureID and it’s going to do Exchange email, calendars and contacts which means there’s no reason to send your email to Blackberry’s Canadian servers for redistribution to your mobile clients. My own experience with Blackberry on the O2 network was not anything to write
RIM’s response to Apple’s upcoming software revision (likely with attendant hardware revision) is to release the Blackberry Bold, an iPhone-themed Blackberry with 3G. The problem being that the cellphone/PDA companies are doing exactly what the PC industry tried to do:
The iPod didn’t win the industry because it was the best music player out there based on features, something that utterly frustrated Creative, Sandisk and Microsoft. It won because it did a few average features in the right way. It wasn’t the first hard disk player but it did it right. They even managed to release an MP3 player without a screen – something that would have been considered a real turkey by the mainstream – and became an overnight success.
Adding 3G to Blackberry won’t make it win. Like Microsoft, they have a commanding market share and the only way is down.