What's Apple Planning to Fend Off iPhone's Rivals? - Page 2

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But Palm doesn't see itself as much of a pushover.

"Palm has a long history of innovation that is reflected in our products and robust patent portfolio, and we have long been recognized for our fundamental patents in the mobile space," the company said in a statement sent to InternetNews.com. "If faced with legal action, we are confident that we have the tools necessary to defend ourselves and we have every reason to believe that our launch plans will come to full fruition."

Ben Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies, said Palm itself has plenty of patents related to its line of mobile devices. "I've heard from people inside Palm that they are very confident they can defend their mobile [intellectual property]," Bajarin told InternetNews.com.

Video finally?

But the battle for smartphone dominance may be decided outside of the courtroom, with Apple also widely expected to add new features to the iPhone.

Analysts and iPhone watchers say Apple is almost certain to enhance the product's next version with video features that could be out as soon as this summer, or announced in time for the company's next major developer conference in June.

"There has been a lot of pent-up demand for video capture and input, it's very important," Bajarin said. "It's logical to think the next iPhone will have beefed-up storage and memory, GPU and the optics to capture video."

Raven Zachary, a consultant who specializes in iPhone application development, thinks Apple will generate a lot of excitement if it adds video capture to the iPhone. "I assume that's on Apple's short list," he said. But he's less enthusiastic about video conferencing.

"I'm not sure I see the practicality of videoconferencing on a phone -- it's more of a novelty," he said. "I think a lot of people have privacy concerns, and personally, I would rather do audio. Even on the desktop, I rarely use iChat video."

Industry analyst Roger Kay said he hopes Apple remains willing to explore innovative new designs for the next iPhone. He said he would like to see a device with a larger surface for viewing documents and video, but admits anything that doesn't fit your pocket is "kind of a Bermuda Triangle of form factors" that consumers might not like.

Whatever Apple's next steps, the high end of the mobile device market is theirs to lose, Shiv Bakhshi, an analyst with IDC, told InternetNews.com.

"Apple today is in the driver's seat. They don't have to play a lot of catch up with anyone and they're cool quotient is head and shoulders above anyone else," Bakhshi said. "Adding more video capabilities is a natural extension of the device, but then you have other issues to support it, like improved battery life -- that's an industry problem."