I'm a shameless slut, but most people are finding it harder to switch phone brands.
This week I took possession of my HTC Desire. I've been out of contract for a year and, like a child staring at a confectionary counter, I've been paralysed by so much sweet sweet choice.
Over the year I've whored myself to many different handsets.
* Nokia 5800
* HTC Hero
* Google Nexus One
* Nokia X6
* Samsung Wave
* HTC Legend
* Blackberry Bold
All those user interfaces – God knows how many of them I've stroked and touched. I feel cheap and dirty, but somehow strengthened by the sordid promiscuity of it all.
No one can hurt me now.
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I want to settle down with the Desire for a while. It feels dependable. I love the screen, the speed, the UI. I'm not even bothered about it being brown. I'm not a racist. Some of my best handsets have been black.
So I'm yet another HTC user, one to add to the millions the Taiwanese company is adding every year.
This week, HTC confirmed Q2 revenues up 58.5 per cent year on year, and a 32.8 per cent jump in profit. This puts in on target for 24 million units for 2010. Amazing.
The news came just days after Nokia admitted it's now a 'challenger' in smartphones, and that it has a fight on its hands. Now, to get this in perspective, Nokia still sells around 350m phones a year. But in the high-end space it's getting hammered.
What do your colleagues use? I'm guessing a third have iPhones, a third Blackberries, a quarter Android - and maybe one or two have a Nokia. Even then, I'll bet it's an Eseries, rather than an N97.
Don't forget though. Nokia's been here before. It got caught out by the clamshell fad in 2006, and stormed back to command 40 per cent of all handset sales by the end of 2008.
So it would be foolish to write off the Finns. The N8 looks like a comeback of sorts, and the whole Meego thing – if Intel can make netbook apps a goer – could get very interesting.
What worries me on Nokia's behalf is that it's not just about how good phones are any more. As lovely as the iPhone and the Desire are, their appeal is just as much about seamless access to iTunes, MobileMe, GMail and so on as it is to their good looks and ease of use.
It's getting harder and harder for users to switch. Which is just what Apple and Google
