Momentum = excitement = headlines = sales

Symbian is down, BlackBerry is down, Windows Mobile is down, Palm is down, iPhone is up and Android is up. That is the state of play in the smartphone industry at this time if you believe the online press. Unfortunately all of the analysis and statistics available also back up this premise and it really does seem as though Android and the iPhone is on the way up at the expense of the others.

The reason for this is momentum.

Momentum is a difficult thing to attain and an easy thing to lose and there is little doubt that Android and iPhone have momentum in spades at the moment. Every day new apps are released on both platforms that are original and exciting to a large group of people. Every day a new accessory is released for the phones running these platforms and some of them can add genuine usage benefits to the user. Almost every day a new Android device is released (a slight exaggeration) and the continual process of new phones, new software, accessories, hacks, tricks and everything else keeps the platforms in the public eye all of the time.

The fact that Apple and Google are behind the platforms only helps; we are talking about two companies that are to some controversial, to others God-like and to the rest of us highly recognised. They can generate headlines from nothing and Apple in particular creates a huge amount of buzz around a phone which is updated once a year.

When was the last time you heard of a software release for BlackBerry, webOS, Symbian or Windows Mobile that made you sit up and think “Ooh that looks good!” Well, I can’t think of any recent examples.

The plain fact is that smartphones not running Android or iOS are stable workhorses that do almost everything exactly as they should do. But this is simply not enough to compete with Android and iOS today- even if the iPhone and Android smartphones have problems that can be infuriating they will still sell in bigger numbers because they bring with them a constantly changing landscape which keeps the mobile user interested, and as such much more likely to stick with the platform when upgrade time comes along.