The iPhone has yet again proven that people will put up with some of the worst wireless service in the world just to have a phone they can love. The iPhone won the 2009 JD Power awards for customer satisfaction in both the consumer and business categories.

If you take a look at the breakdown, no other phone came close. Sure, battery life was the iPhone’s weak point, but for all the other criteria, users scored the phone as high as possible. That’s quite a testament to the fanatical love people show for a phone that struggles most with actually making and holding calls, thanks to AT&T’s network.

In other, much less interesting news, LG was the winner for feature phones. Anyone surprised?

What more proof do you need than the iPhone’s sales figures that at the end of the day, it’s customer satisfaction that really matters. Sure your phone might be able to multi-task, it might have a unique, web-based operating system. It might even have the physical keyboard its competitor lacks. But if the whole world likes that other phone better, those features don’t mean a thing.

It’s no secret that much of the iPhone’s success comes from its development community. There are other great touchscreen smartphones out there, but none with application support behind the iPhone.

That’s no secret to Palm, either, and they’re hoping to offer similar support (albeit on a much smaller scale) to win some customers to the Pre. At launch the Pre sold some 50,000 phones and saw 150,000+ apps downloaded in that first weekend. That’s a solid start, but it won’t be long before Pre owners will want more.

Developers released some new Pre apps yesterday, in the midst of the Apple mayhem. The new titles included LikeMe, a restaurant/entertainment recommendation and rating service, and a sports news app for baseball fans. The Pre catalog is still smaller than tiny (like fewer than 50), but the catalog is still in beta, and only a few developers have the kit. As soon as it goes public, I’m sure you’ll see a more rapid influx of applications. Palm should make that happen soon – there’s sure to be a big rush of developers hoping to lure iPhone 3GS customers in the coming weeks.