Early 2010 is a nice time to come to market and have all of the attention in the cellular public.  This fall has been one of the busiest seasons I can remember both on the consumer and commercial side.  And spring is usually when the iphone "leaks" begin and OS upgrades may start up.  So a Jan/Feb timeframe is an excellent choice. As a dinosaur iphone owner, I know I'll be anxiously waiting for updates here.

Brian I didn't forget the carrier change.  I've been thinking about it every day for 2 years now.  When Apple first proposed exclusivity to the carriers, Verizon gave them the ol' "thanks but no thanks" because Apple wanted too much control.  Now, a few years later, I think we've all seen the success of the iPhone and I think carriers will bend a little more to work with Apple.  However, I fear Apple will give up enough control for the iPhones and we may be stuck with a single carrier again.  Still, you are right that it's going to be another big Apple story that will keep the market at the edge of their seats for a while.

I'd rather they didn't lock themselves to 1 carrier. I think iPhone is the exception because the Apple want a lot of control and multiple carriers makes it harder. I don't think HTC has enough clout or "wow factor" to be successful locking in. Then again, their strategy is to have more products compared to Apple's very few narrow product lines but maintain high margins and very high volume (per model). I've been on AT&T for a long time and it does an adequate job so I'm not interested in switching carriers. I'd be real disappointed if the HD2 does not at least support AT&T's 3G band.

It looks like we found our answer regarding when the iPhone.  It looks like it will open up to all carriers in Q3.

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/11/iphone_coming_t.html;jsessionid=MQJCU3UF0W1PNQE1GHPSKHWATMY32JVN?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_ALL