It’s been an eventful couple of weeks. Windows 7 got released and Apple as usual came up with their silly Windows bashing commercials, which are getting really old now. Worldwide Apple themselves revised their product lineup with new improved MacBooks and a new 27” iMac. While in North America Barnes & Noble announced “Nook”, their Kindle killer, offering you a gorgeous dual display with a 16 color e-ink as primarily display and a full color 3.5” toushcreen LCD on the bottom as well as a more reasonable price plan that what we get used to have in the past.
But lets talk about Androids. If you have been following up on news lately, you might have seen pretty important Android announcement published around the web. Despite having the full backing of a gigantic company like Google, Android has seen relatively mundane progress in terms of software releases as well as in hardware adoption until now, and lest the iPhone alone and leading the way.
In the past Android devices popped-up here and there and a couple succeeded in making some buzz, but nothing outstanding like the “Jesus” phone until just recently when Google CEO Eric Schmidt commented, and I quote, “Android adoption is about to explode”.
While it’s not surprising for a CEO to make some startling comments about their products, but when someone like Eric Schmidt makes a claim like this, I usually take it seriously. And it seems he wasn’t just kidding around.
And things are kicking-up pretty fast with the announcement of Motorola’s “Droid”, the latest Android phone to be released on Verizon (some reports “Droid” isn’t just one phone but a whole lineup). Reliable tech sites that had some quality time with “Droid”, or “Sholes”, proclaims that it is the best Android phone yet. Pretty heavy claims indeed and we can only hope to be true. Strong from these statements Verizon even went so far as to make an “iDont” commercial to point out iPhones limits and says everything iPhone doesn’t do, the new and more powerful “Droid”… does it flawlessly.
So far so good for Google and all Android fans and after all, there is nothing better than competition in order to improves things, and what a better statement for Steve Jobs in a way who just needed to be comforted in its early claim that all the other smartphones are still catching-up with it’s 1st generation iPhone. But, hey Steve, don’t fall asleep, Android 2.0 is here and alive!
But let me throw in my two cents here. Apple with the iPhone caused a paradigm shift in the smartphone usage, and maybe its’ definition too and so far, the Jesus Phone has been quite unstoppable. This is, not only because of its unique user experience, but also thanks to its huge database of music, iTunes is USA’s largest online music seller, but also thanks to its huge software database strong of over 850000 apps that generated just about 2 billion downloads to date.
Apple just made what many tried for years in the Windows Mobile world but failed until today, possible… Being the First Company to propose such huge amount of software and being a real success at the same time is just mind blowing.
Witch such strong competitor, Google has quite a challenge ahead, and in order to make sure that things goes the right direction Google has no other choice to be extremely involved in future development and it’s been reported that Google had a direct influence on the design of the “Droid”, something pretty important to and good as far as I am concerned, and excellent news for Motorola too, which happen to be in needs of someone who knows what is talking about and aim big in this Smarphone world. But so far just having the coolest OS is just half of the equation and Google really need to boost thing up to when it comes to its App Store, and whether you like if or not, but the actual Android Market Store is quite disappointing.
Targeting like the iPhone a wider variety of customers who in the past did not even owned a smartphone, the OS that the device is running on doesn’t not necessarily means anything, however being sure to access from their smartphone to the biggest Music and Application library is something that will help them to make-up their mind, and be sure that the sales rep in front of such customers while have an easier life to sell one more particular brand than the others with such argument.
And this is where Google has to concentrate its effort now, after all, developers goes where the money is and targeting the biggest audience is the easiest way for them to turn hours of coding into profits. Also Google is yet to have anything like the iTunes store, Apple Core business is selling iPhones to the world, but here again things may change soon too… According to the General rumors running on the Internet, Google made a huge move into this direction a couple of days ago, having for sure a huge impact on how Android will be marketed in the future.
Bu offering a more robust and complete OS, with a real App and Music Store, Google is shaping its future as a real iPhone Competitor and this is just what we needed.
Being an Internet Leader and reaching way more customers that Apple, Google gives not only the Developers but also to Recording Companies or even Movie makers, access to a huge number or potential customers ready to invest in their next Mobile device.
Now a single Device may not change the game in Favor to Android, and despite the fact that Apple Succeed with just virtually 2 different models, Google via to its Android OS will be offered in a bit more of 50 different models coming from none the less the biggest makers available on the market, going from HTC, to Samsung, LG, Motorola and many more.
No I really do not think that a Single Device, like say the “Doird” will succeed in 1 year to kill over the iPhone, and I do not think that there is yet such possible challenger, but thanks to a better OS, more devices available on the market and the unknown and yet unleashed force of the Open-Source world, Android has a bright future ahead, but it will take time.
“Maduranga Liyanage is a PhD student at Keio university. A technology enthusiast and a wireless follower.”…
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