APPLE IPHONE WALKS DOWN THE PLANK

When Apple introduces new iPhones on Tuesday, as everyone expects them to do, the company that practically created the smartphone will face an unusual task: keeping up with the competition.

There's still plenty to be said for the iPhone's sleek, simple design, easy-to-navigate operating system and tidy "closed garden" app environment.

But as phones running Google's Android operating system, particularly Samsung's, have gained in popularity, iPhone owners have increasingly found themselves looking around and wondering, "Why can't my phone do that?"

There have been six models of the iPhone since Apple introduced the pioneering device in 2007. This week should bring the seventh (and maybe the eighth). Here's a look at Apple's brief history of iPhone launches.

"The smartphone market is more competitive overall, and in the high-end it has become a duopoly between Samsung and Apple," said Carolina Milanesi, a consumer-technology researcher with Gartner Research. "Many feel that Apple needs to regain the distance they once had over their competitors."

The iPhone has remained the world's top selling smartphone, save for a few quarters when it was dethroned by phones in Samsung's Galaxy S line. But after making up nearly 24% of all smartphones sold in late 2011, Apple's device is now down to about 14%, while Android phones account for a whopping 79%.

The iPhone and iPad "were revolutionary when they first came out, but (rival)products that are out there now are about as close to Apple's devices as they've ever been," Scott Kessler, an analyst at S&P Capital IQ, told CNNMoney. "The question is whether Apple is going to introduce products that are different enough from their competitors."

So, what could we see come Tuesday?

The most high-profile feature that's been rumored for the new iPhone is a fingerprint scanner. Such a security feature would let users register a finger or thumb print and use it to unlock their phone.

There are reports the phone could be able to access LTE Advanced, a network that would make it faster than phones with 4G connections. That network is not yet available in many areas of the U.S., however.

Apple reportedly also is looking at adding bigger display screens for the iPhone, but they would likely be for future models, not the phones coming this week.

As usual, Apple is expected to upgrade the phone with a faster processor, better battery life and an improved camera. But those are the sort of pragmatic upgrades that, while arguably most important to user experience, don't turn heads the way a novelty like Siri, the iPhone 4S's voice-activated digital assistant, did in 2011.
Follow on the history of Iphone here IPHONE

Blackberry and Apple are really walking down the plank to wreckage. What do you think?