SmartPhones and Mobile Computing

What a change a new year can bring. At the beginning of 2009, the iPhone held sway over the smartphone (or as Google would call it “superphone”) category, together with Blackberry (for business users in particular).

Now we have a competitve field which is much richer – Droid, Pre, NexusOne, iPhone, Blackberry. And now even the exclusive deal with AT&T for the iPhone is starting to break up, with a new Verizon iPhone coming in a few months.

We’ve already begun to see the fruits of that competition, as talk, text, and data packages seem to be getting more competitive.

And if Google’s acquisiton of mobile ad companies is a sign of their strategy, we may find them to be quite willing to reduce prices to win market share. Apple’s similar moves may make that a certainty.

At the end of the day, big, big players are helping to ensure that more of us do more of our computing from our pocket, rather than our desktop or laptop. And as more of us renew contracts and get new phones, it is likely that we will see improved pricing and greater functionality.

Here’s to a year where the palm top takes over from the laptop in earnest.