Just when you thought you had the coolest mobile on the block, along comes a wave of new smart phones…

GET READY for a new era of mobile phone envy. A new crop of phones from Apple, palm and nokia is redefining the concept of the phone, and putting the power of a laptop in your pocket.

The iphone 3G S, palm pre and nokia n97 are such an advance on what the industry has for years dubbed smartphones, that they have prompted some commentaators to call them  ”superphones”.

With always-on connectivity whether through Wi-Fi or 3G they are driving mobile usage of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, and making it easy to share and view relatively high quality photos and videos on the move.

Apple’s iphone 3GS Heats Up Smartphone Wars…

This is all being driven by the iphone, the iconic gadget from computer maker Apple, which, despite technical limitations, has redefined what people expect from a top-of-the-line phone.

The key to Apple’s success – it has sold over 21 million iphones in the last two years – is ease of use.

With its 3.5 inch touchscreen and single button, the iphone looked nothing like a mobile but, with Apple’s customary attention to design and user interface, even the most committed luddites have found it simple to use.

That simplicity comes in part because Apple tightly controlled both the hardware and software of the iphone. It was on the market a year before Apple provided a way for third parties to distribute softtware to it, but the AppStore, part of iTunes, has now been copied by competitors including nokia, Google, Blackberry-maker RIM, Microsoft and LG.

Although it raises the stakes, the iphone 3G S is an evoluution of the popular device rather than a radical departure.

In fact, with the release of the third version of the iPhone operrating system many of the  features can be achieved through a simple softtware upgrade. These include the ability to cut, copy and paste between applications (an amazing omission up to now), enhanced search, improved parental conntrols over purchased content and the Find My iPhone feature, which pinpoints a lost phone on a map.

Nokia The Old Boys Of The Phone World…

Despite being the world’s bigggest maker of mobile handsets, nokia has been forced to respond to Apple’s dominance of the top end of the market. While its N-series of multimedia phones, in particular the N95 8GByte, have offered superior features to the iPhone, such as a five-mega pixel camera, they have been hampered by a complex user interface.

The n97, which combines a responsive high resolution touchhscreen with a slide-out miniiqwerty keyboard, is its latest effort to craft an iPhone-killer @and looks to have a real chance of success.

The combination of a highly accurate GPS chip and social nettworking software could provide the winning combination for nokia. The company maintains the n97 will be a mass-market device rather than a high-end one.

Palm Pre Mobile Organising Your Digital Life…

A surprise player in all this is palm. Although best known on this side of the Atlantic for its perrsonal digital assistants (PDAs), which were a must-have for executives in the 1990s, it was actually a serious player in the nasscent smartphone market in the US.

Recent financial travails saw it lose that lead, but its private equity backers installed Jon Rubinnstein, a former Apple executive, as executive chairman and  chief executive. Rubinstein built a team of 250 engineers, many from Apple, and told them to come up with a phone that would challenge the iPhone. Although still only available in the US, the pre has received rave reviews and sold a reported 100,000 devices in its first weekend on sale.

Taken as a category, these three devices are delivering what the mobile industry has been prommising for a decade or more – a truly portable computing experience that fits in your pocket. Their accompanying stores for buying additional software and content have provided a shot of innovation to the software industry. Gadget lovers are set to be the main benefiiciaries as the big three fight to become mobile top dog.