ON LIFE AFTER THE iPHONE ANNOUNCEMENT

"ARE WE THERE YET?"

Well, the media hoopla over Apple's iPhone seems to be winding down, ending yesterday with a better than expected quarterly and year-end 2006 report (see Techmeme thread). 

And the iPhone won't be available for five long months.

What's a gadget-addict to do?

Why, start focusing on the next versions of the Blackberry of course.

As Crunchgear reports,

"Next month, look for the launch of a sexy model called the 8800. Looking very much like the older, fatter brother of the Pearl, the 8800 is a full-QWERTY enabled BB of un-astounding features.

More or less an upgrade to the existing 8700 series Cingular currently offers, the 8800 adds the popular/troublesome trackball of the Pearl, meaning this might be standard feature on all forthcoming BBs from RIM."

Before one gets all worked up about the 8800 though, keep in mind that the entire crop of Blackberries gets a total makeover with the new 9000 series towards the end of the year.

As the CrunchGear post elaborates:

"Later in the year, however, an all new handheld will be unveiled, according the our (Boy) Genius. The 9000-series (9900? 9009? 9201?) will feature a completely redesigned Blackberry GUI, new hardware to run it, and probably 3G connectivity.

This handset won’t just be for Cingular/AT&T, however. Look for versions across the board as it’s actually a new class of Blackberries, one to suit each carrier."

The iPhone mid-2007, and a totally revamped Blackberry later in the year.

It's a good thing we all come standard with two ears.