RIM’s Blackberry already had hundreds (thousands?) of apps available before there ever was an iPhone.
Then came the iPhone, followed a while later by the App Store. And the game was changed. The paradigm shifted. It’s blown all previous concepts away.
Now RIM offers Blackberry App World, and Palm and Google have their analogs to the iPhone App Store, too.
But, you see, the competitors are all following. They’re not offering anything new. And they’re certainly not offering anything as rich, complete, mature, and simply fun to develop in as Apple’s iPhone SDK.
My opinion is that the iPhone has already achieved critical mass in terms of App Store offerings. The others won’t be able to catch up for a long, long time. And not until someone else comes up with a game changer.
Of the competitors, I’d put my long money on Google as having the best chance.
Palm, I think, offers the best alternative to iPhone with its webOS… but they’re simply not selling phones. Last estimate I heard was that they’d sold around 50,000 Pres in June so far. Apple sold over 1 million iPhone 3GS’s (at $199 and $299) in the first weekend… and there’s been no word on how many iPhone 3G’s (at $99 now!) they sold yet since the intro of the 3GS.