The Smartphone Forecast for 2009

The Palm Pre and the Apple iPhone 3G S are the smartphone standouts of 2009, but they're not the only news. Operating systems are receiving updates, new devices are debuting, and app stores are growing by the day. Here's what to look for from the six big operating systems in smartphones today.

Apple iPhone OS 3.0

At this week's World Wide Developer Conference, Apple introduced the iPhone 3G S, its third-generation iPhone, and announced availability for iPhone OS 3.0. While the exterior of the new phone looks identical to that of the iPhone 3G, the real changes are inside. Apple says the "S" stands for speed: The company's benchmarks show that the iPhone 3G S launches messages twice as fast, loads games 2.4 times faster, and opens attachments 3.6 times faster.

Though Apple has indicated that it changed inside components, it hasn't directly confirmed exactly what is responsible for the speed boost. Judging by winks and nods from those in the know, however, we've come to assume that it has both a faster processor and additional memory as compared with the iPhone 3G.

Some performance improvements will be independent of the network, but others won't be--which raises questions about whether you'll see those improvements over your local AT&T connection. Over the last few years, iPhone customers have complained about AT&T's signal coverage across the country, particularly in densely populated areas (remember the South by Southwest meltdown?). The iPhone 3G S will be able to work with AT&T's forthcoming faster HSPA 7.2 technology, but the network upgrade won't start until later this year and won't be finished until 2011.

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