The iPhone's Near Future

What will happen this summer?

Apple may introduce the long anticipated 3G iPhone. How will that happen? Well, Apple may just replace the current EDGE chip in the production line with a 3G capable one. It may be even possible to have your current iPhone upgraded to a 3G one as an option if you send it for battery replacement. However. general iPhone statistics of internet usage show this current Wifi/Edge device to generate much more internet traffic than all others in the US combined. It also takes the second place in Europe not much behind all Nokia handsets put together, even the 3G ones. So, while not the latest tech, the iPhone in terms of overall capability has the winning mix. At the end of the day, why change something that is working so well?

What else?

iPhone will get the its second major firmware upgrade, the v2.0 or 1.2.0. This update will make the iPhone just as attractive to the businesses as it was for the average customer until now. Also, the iPhone will will get thousands of new apps! How is that? Well the iPhone SDK has been downloaded more than 100,000 times in just the first 4 days after 6th of March. Even if only 10% of those who downloaded it do only one iPhone app, that’s over 1000 apps already. Well over the icon limit of the iPhone, which is 180 apps total on the 9 home screens.

So, while Apple may ultimately postpone the 3G model for 2009, the iPhone is sure to take on the Business, Gaming and PDA handheld platform market before the 2008 is up. Combine its great platform capabilities with another 50-100 $ decrees in price and introduction in new markets and we could be looking at some 15,000,000 iPhones sold before MacWorld 2009.