More Competition coming for the iPhone?

Verizon Wireless and its nearly 62 million subscribers have been in a long battle with Apple over the new iPhone. Now, it looks like those people might be able to rest a little bit easier as their fight might soon be over. Many of Verizon’s customers feared that their company would ultimately break down under the pressure put on by Apple and Steve Jobs, but it doesn’t appear as if the company is ready to team up with Apple. Instead, Verizon looks poised to release their own competing product. The LG Voyager looks like a worthy challenger for the iPhone, but no one has really been able to mount a challenge yet. If they do it, it will certainly be the first time that Jobs has been made to shake in the face of imminent competition.

This week, various gadget blogs have broken the story on the new Verizon products. The company formally announced the launch of its four new products, which come out just in time for the holiday gift rush. The new Voyager is the lead dog of the release and Verizon expects it to take down the iPhone. They even paid a $6 fee to Broadcom for each phone in order to get those through United States Customs. The question still remains, though. Will this new product be able to slay the iPhone?

If you’re smart, I wouldn’t count on it. Thus far, no company has been able to provide anything that even remotely competes with what Steve Jobs and Apple is putting out. Though these are the disgusting stories of competitors gone bad, some of the previous attempts to knock the iPhone off of its perch are certainly worth mentioning in light of this recent news.

Sprint Nextel tried this already, and it didn’t work. When they released a product in an effort to upstage the iPhone this summer, they fell flat on their face. Since then, consumers have been looking for companies to man up and provide some competition, but nobody seems willing to make that happen…until now. One of the top guys at the Verizon office, Mike Lanman, put out a statement recently that predicted the “Voyager would kill the iPhone.”

Bold prediction, Mr. Lannan. After all, when is the last time that any company has been able to outdo anything that Apple has done? Apple’s plethora of iPods all became instant hits and have customers clamoring for more. The iPhone sold out within a week of hitting the shelves. Microsoft tried a similar tactic when they released music player Zune. That, too, was designed to send Steve Jobs under. Raise your hand if you’ve ever seen someone who owned a Zune? I didn’t think so.

There are a couple of things about the Voyager which might be giving Verizon some hope, though. It has some pretty good working features, including a unique QWERTY keyboard. The device is set up to have some success in a market struggling for new products, but it most certainly isn’t the product to “kill” the iPhone.

If some poor company is set on knocking off Apple, they better be coming with something a little bit more substantial than a fancy new phone keyboard. Apple’s growing base of avid followers is only becoming stauncher in its view that the company’s products are second to none. With the reduced price and added upgrades coming later this fall, some company is going to have to do a whole lot to hurt the iPhone’s popularity. For Steve Jobs, taking on all comers is nothing new, so I certainly wouldn’t expect to see him backing down in the near future.