It’s a race, and that is better for everybody.

I read today that iPhone 5 sales have eclipsed Android this month. As the crazy holiday shopping season starts I expect that to continue. RIM appears to be suddenly relevant again, as the digerati are ‘excited’ by some things that the BB10 platform appears to do. Windows Phone’s phantom reboot issue seems to be solved, although the public release of the fix won’t be out for a week or so.

Now I am not stupid enough to think that Windows Phone 8, or 7.9 for that reason, is a contender. I also think that BB10 could make french toast in the morning and it still might be irrelevant, but it is getting interesting.

Windows phone will only become relevant if Windows 8 becomes a hit, and I think that is a sucker bet. Windows 9 will be great, but I think that 8 is the new Vista. A huge hulking behemoth trying to do too much for to many, with too complex a solution. If Microsoft surprises me all legacy support will disappear by 2016 and good riddance to bad rubbish.

BlackBerry 10 is WebOS. I don’t mean it is a copy of Palm’s swan song but everything I have seen shows some sleek innovations built on solid platform tools with a well-defined roadmap. I am sad that it might be two years too late. My own experience with BlackBerry was awesome, but they couldn’t or wouldn’t keep innovating. Apple is a great example of a company comeback, but RIM doesn’t have a Steve Jobs.

Life as a monopoly is simply stupid, and neither patent trolls or stupid lawsuits can change that. iPhone and Android make each other better every day. There is a constant pressure to make new things and different things. To innovate, consolidate, simplify, improve, and even expand. Windows 8 Phone and BB10 will continue to push innovation too.

We all still need each other, but my dad probably still doesn’t need a smartphone.