Currently it appears there are 4 cell phones which will be the front runners of technology for the rest of the year. None of these phones are currently available but will (mostly likely) be by the end of the summer. They are:
Nexus One for Verizon
HTC Incredible
HTC EVO 4G
Iphone 4G
Since they have not released yet they can't be judged by reviews or sales figures so i have put together a Google trend of the 4 contenders below.
As you can see all of them have been gaining momentum since the beginning of April. The abrupt appearance of the HTC EVO 4G is not a mystery since this handset was not known to the world until CTIA (as the event tag shows). It gained significant momentum pretty quick since it is in my opinion the best phone on the list.
The Iphone 4G is obviously on top for a majority on the coat tails of it's predecessor. If you ask me this will release last of all four. Apple will most likely see what is most popular from the other three, integrate them into the 4G Iphone and then add more claims to the lawsuit against HTC. I stand by my claim that apple is evil.
An interesting anomaly in the data shows >100% increase in traffic regarding the Verizon nexus one. This was during the time leading up the CTIA when the world thought Verizon was going to use this venue to launch it. However Verizon did nothing of the sort. That is why this fizzled back to the background linear progression almost inline with apple.
Verizon seems to have a new approach to releasing new phones. Also highly anticipated at CTIA was the HTC incredible which is speculated to launch any day now. But instead of formally announcing the release Verizon will not say anything official. Instead every 3 - 4 days some small bit of "proof" that the incredible is going to be available eventually. These have mostly been in the form of screen shots or cell phone pictures of Verizon employee systems for training or programing of the incredible. Now whether these employees are acting alone or being prompted, Verizon is benefiting from the seemingly inadvertent press. If this was a real leak the security would have tightened after the first leak. My guess is this is Verizon's new strategy. It is likely that the incredible is not equivalent to the EVO 4G but by covertly building suspense without actually releasing the specs they can create a die hard following guaranteeing huge sales for a product they won't even officially announce. The funny thing is it's working... I can not wait for this phone...
