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As Apple prepares to launch the iPhone 2 on Monday, competitors like Palm and RIM are not worried. On the contrary, they are licking their chops, preparing for a surge in sales, even though Apple expects to sell millions of new iPhones worldwide.

"The way I look at it is there are 1.2 billion cellphones out there, and we're just scratching the surface," said Mike Laziridis, CEO of Research In Motion, which makes the BlackBerry, the iPhone's closest rival.

Steve Jobs is expected to announce the second version of the iPhone on Monday morning during a keynote speech kicking off Apple's annual Worldwide Developer's Conference.

The iPhone 2 has already been dubbed the "BlackBerry killer." It promises to be faster, slicker and cheaper, boasting features like fast 3-G networking, Exchange support and even carrier subsidies. If the rumors prove true, it will be the iPhone many buyers have been holding out for.

It's a standard line for companies to say they "welcome competition," but it's usually a throwaway meant to deflect attention from strategic vulnerabilities.

In the case of the iPhone, however, competitors earnestly have reason to welcome Apple to the market. Sales show that what's been good for Apple has been verrrry good for smartphone makers. Retail sales of the BlackBerry, for example, are up 38 percent in the year since the iPhone's introduction.

It didn't initially look that way. When the iPhone 2 rumors first surfaced, nervous investors sold off shares of RIM under the assumption that the company would get creamed by Apple. Instead, RIM's market share of smartphones in the United States has actually swelled from 35 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007 to 45 percent in the first quarter of 2008.

"The fact of the matter is this," said Pablo Perez-Fernandez, an analyst with Global Crown Capital. "There were a lot of BlackBerrys in those stores where iPhones were selling, and there were people who may not have thought about a smartphone before, wanted the iPhone, thought it was too expensive, and bought a BlackBerry instead."

And for smartphone makers like Palm, Nokia and RIM, Apple helped whet the market's appetite while they went in for the kill, helped by discounted prices and a choice in carriers.

Palm says the sell-through rate on smartphones over the last two quarters has climbed 21 percent to 833,000 units in the third (and most recent) quarter, from 686,000 in the previous quarter (although the sell-through rate was 689,000 in the first quarter).

"The Centro has played a critical role in moving our transformational efforts along at a fast pace," said Ed Colligan, CEO and president of Palm, in a March conference call. He added that more than 70 percent of Centro buyers are traditional cellphone users who are purchasing a smartphone for the first time.

"What the iPhone did was make it cool to use smartphones," said Ramon Llamas, an analyst with research firm IDC. "Before, you had the BlackBerry, which mostly just resonated with enterprise users or business people. Now, there's a whole new market of smartphone consumers . Before the phone came out, I actually asked guys from companies like Nokia and RIM how they were going to respond, and the answer was unanimous -- it was, 'Welcome to the party, hop in the pool, the water's fine'"

It's an odd phenomenon because it's not as though Apple invented the smartphone or any of its features – touch screen devices have been around for years and lots of mobile phones already had music capabilities on phones. What Apple did was package it -- and market it -- in a way that made it attractive to mainstream consumers.

"The fact that it looks cool and sexy has helped Apple, and has called attention to a portion of the market that had been under the radar for a lot of people," Llamas said.

In many ways, the iPhone's effect on the market can be compared to what the iPod did for MP3 players.

Before Apple rolled out the iPod, the portable audio market wasn't doing much. In 1999, there were really only a handful of MP3-player makers and unit sales were marginal. Just a couple years after Apple rolled out the iPod in 2001, an industry was born.

Total sales of MP3 players in the United States jumped from a paltry couple million (depending on whose data you use) up to tens of millions over the last few years, as less-expensive models have become readily available.

"The combination of Apple's iPod device and its iTunes Store for music downloads has energized the music industry," gushed a JupiterResearch report in 2003.

Now we'll have to see whether the iPhone will have the same effect on the smartphone market.

Senior Editor Dylan Tweney contributed to this report.

Christopher Conte does not make a living as an artist. He pays his rent working as a prosthetist, designing and building artificial limbs for amputees. But after his 9-to-5 gig, the New York-based craftsman pours his knowledge of biomechanics, robotics, biology, and cyberpunk into intricate sculptures that could have sprung from the darkest recesses of H. P. Lovecraft's mind. In his latest series, Conte adapts terrestrial artifacts like dentist tools and watch innards to give pieces like Black Widow 1 (above) an extraterrestrial feel. Catch his newest exhibit, Cyberdine (a play on Cyberdyne Systems, the company from the Terminator movies that birthed SkyNet and, you know, took over the world) at the Last Rites Gallery in New York through June 29.

1902: Joe Horn and Frank Hardart open the Automat at 818 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. It's America's first coin-operated cafeteria.

Customers would put nickels into slots, turn a knob and open a little glass door to get their food. Horn and Hardart used Swedish-patented equipment they'd imported from Berlin, which already sported a successful "waiterless restaurant."

Some sources place opening day on June 9, others June 12. What's not in dispute is the place was a bargain. The price of a cup of coffee stayed at a nickel from 1912 (when it was worth about $1.10 in today's money) until 1950 (a mere 45 cents today), before it inevitably rose to two nickels.

The company branched out to New York's Times Square in 1912 and continued to expand its operation. The firm also designed its own improved automat equipment.

Employees serving as "nickel throwers" at the head of the line exchanged currency or large coins for the nickels you'd need for the coin slots. One nickel for coffee, five for the turkey and gravy, another nickel for pie. You'd also have your choice of other diner-food favorites, including a famous macaroni and cheese, chicken potpie, Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes, creamed spinach and baked beans. Desserts were also renowned: huckleberry, pumpkin, coconut-cream and custard pies, as well as vanilla ice cream with real vanilla beans, and rice pudding with plump raisins.

It was all prepared in centralized, assembly-line kitchens using standardized recipes that called for quality ingredients. This, plus 85 locations in Philadelphia and New York, made it America's first fast-food chain.

The famous coffee that poured from coin-and-crank-operated dolphin-shaped spouts was never more than 20 minutes old. Irving Berlin composed "Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee" about it, and the ditty became Horn & Hardart's theme song.

That's not the Automat's only spot in American culture. Edward Hopper painted it in 1927. The original Broadway set for The Producers incorporated some of the Automat. And then there's the Concerto for Horn and Hardart by P.D.Q. Bach (Peter Schickele).

Price increases eventually replaced knuckles full of nickels with quantities of quarters and even special tokens that you had to go get from the cashier. All this reduced both the efficiency and the charm of the Automat, because efficiency and economy were in fact the very heart of its charm.

The chain finally succumbed to the ever-rising price of ingredients for its original recipes, changing tastes and of course the growing popularity of fast-food chains like McDonald's and Burger King, as well as New York & Philadelphia's plethora of pizza places. Philly's last Automat closed in 1990, and New York's (on East 42nd Street) a year later. The company closed its last bakery cafe in 2005.

The Automat lives on in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. There you can see an elaborately decorated, 35-foot section of Philadelphia’s original 1902 Horn & Hardart, complete with mirrors and marble. It ain't your father's fast food, but it may be your great-grandma's comfort food.

Source: Various

Exactly 106 years ago, Frank Hardart and Joseph Horn opened the first Automat restaurant in the United States, at 818 Chestnut St. in Philadelphia. It had no tables, no waiters and only a single counter with 15 stools. For the first time in American restaurant dining, customers served themselves. Although this idea was groundbreaking, the restaurant had two more killer features that would make it a success and help launch a fast-food nation: The meals were cheap, and it was quick.

Unlike fast-food restaurants today, the original Automat was an attractive and socially acceptable place to be and be seen. During the Depression, the Automat also became an attractive value proposition: A plate of beans or macaroni and cheese cost only a few nickels.

Click through the gallery to see images from the first Automats and their current emulators.

Left: In the first half of the 20th century, the Horn & Hardart Automat in Manhattan was a culinary landmark.

Photo: HO/AP/Courtesy Museum of the City of New York

Rich, poor, young and old -- practically everyone in New York ate at Horn & Hardart Automats.

During its heyday, the Automat fulfilled some of the most fervent expectations about American efficiency and ingenuity -- if we could build high-quality Fords through an assembly line format, why couldn't we do the same for food?

Customers would purchase a basic meal (such as sandwiches) through coin-operated machines. The windows hid a kitchen that would prepare food throughout the day. The novelty of inserting a few nickels, pulling the lever and sliding the clear window (usually sideways) to purchase a meal was an attraction in itself. Diners often found their food enveloped in cheap, waxy paper.

Photo: HO/AP/Courtesy Museum of the City of New York

An early postcard shows an Automat at West 57th Street and Sixth Avenue in New York.

Photo: HO/AP/Courtesy Museum of the City of New York

A customer buys a cup of coffee at what was then the last Horn & Hardart Automat eatery in midtown Manhattan, in this AP file photo dated June 8, 1987. Now a fading memory, in its mid-century heyday Horn & Hardart Automat served up lamb stew and pie to millions of New Yorkers who dropped a coin into a slot and opened a small glass door to fetch their food.

The first Automat in the United States opened at 818-820 Chestnut St., Philadelphia.

[This image is in the public domain.]

The classic automat format returned to New York City in 2006, with the opening of the Bamn food automat in the East Village. Owners David Leong and Nobu X have added a little bit of Asian style to the experience, with Japanese beef sliders, and hot-pink lights. Just drop a few coins into the slot and you can get a burger, a pizza or even tasty pork buns. Bamn is open 24 hours a day.

Convenience and supercheap prices are the biggest draw for Bamn. Most dishes run between $1.50 and $2.50, and according to most reviews (from the tough-to-please foodie crowd to regular Yankee-bleacher creatures), the food is surprisingly good. So how do they make sure the buns are constantly fresh and the slots always well stocked? A full, working, chef-led kitchen lies behind the wall of glass.

Photo: Tina Fineberg/AP

The original Automat was a Swedish invention manufactured in Germany. Today, FEBO automats in Amsterdam are known for their highly caloric McKroket burgers, which are thick ragout or gravy covered in breadcrumbs and then deep-fried. Then there's the spicy Satékroket beef with peanut sauce -- "It's delicious!" (That's the FEBO slogan.) Mmm.

Baggers is a recently opened restaurant in Nuremberg, Germany, that serves its meals to customers through a winding steel rail system, getting rid of the need for waiters, or really, the need to talk to anyone while you eat.

So how do they do it? Through the wonderful magic of gravity, of course. After each meal is ordered on a touchscreen (where you can check your e-mail while you wait), the fully staffed kitchen on the second floor prepares the meal, covers it with a silver stainless plate cover and pushes it down along the rails, slowly careening it to your exact seat.

This technology not only looks cool, but saves the owners a lot on the man-hours of waiters waiting and people haggling over the tips.