A slew of new product announcements will put Apple under more pressure than ever.
Mobile phone manufacturers claim their handsets are designed to last four years – but consumers will be asked to change their phones faster than ever over the next few months as a host of new devices is released onto the market.
Last week, just days before the announcement of Steve Jobs’ death, Apple announced the iPhone 4S, an upgrade rather than a revolution for its world-leading model; two days later HTC announced its new device, focusing on audio performance. Google is soon to unveil its new flagship model, likely to be called the Nexus Prime, and major announcements are expected from the newly resurgent Motorola. The pace of change is dizzying.
One theme, however, emerges clearly: both Google and Microsoft want to respectively maintain and establish their positions alongside Apple as major smartphone powers. Google has numbers on its side, with more than half of all new phones sold now running the company’s Android operating system. But its problem now is to establish the operating system as a real rival to the ease of use the Apple iOS has pioneered.
Google’s next major mobile announcement will see it launch a new version of the Android operating system, codenamed “Ice Cream Sandwich”. This will be the first that, like Apple’s iOS, provides a unified experience across both tablet devices and mobile phones. The effect, the company hopes, will be to galvanise the app developers who make an OS feel vibrant. Thus far, it’s been Apple that has hogged their attention because iPhone and iPad users remain much more likely to download paid-for apps rather than free ones.
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