Android: The unlikely iPhone competitor
You may have heard about Android in the past few months. It’s the new Google Mobile OS that they announced last November. Developed as part of a Google led initiative, and backed by over 30 companies including many major manufacturers like Motorola and HTC, the SDK has gotten many thousands of downloads by developers eager to try it out.
2007 was marked, at least as far as news coverage goes, by the iPhone. Will 2008 be the year of the Google phones? Now that Apple has released it’s iPhone SDK also, the race is on to know which platform will come out on top. It’s hard to say yet who will win, and part of that is because both platforms share so much in common. The iPhone itself uses a lot of the same software. The map application, for example, is Google Maps for Mobile on both platforms. The web browser is based on the same open source code. Both support things like Bluetooth, touch screens, and threaded SMS.
Google has the advantage of being device neutral. Android is a software platform, so it will be implemented on an array of phones from many companies. Both low end and high end phones will be able to use the same interface, and have access to the same applications.
The iPhone however came out first, and has the power of the Apple marketing machine behind it. While Google is a name that’s just as known, since they aren’t making the actual devices, who knows how much hype each manufacturer can put out for their respective Android-based devices.
I think in the end the consumers will benefit from the increased competition. It’s obvious that with such close offerings, each company will be pushed to improve faster, and bring out more innovation to stay ahead. It’s too early to say if 2008 will be the year of the Google phones, but one thing I’m certain is that this year will see just as much development in the mobile arena than last year did, if not more!
