mess_iah

Yesterday I bought myself a Christmas present, namely a T Mobile G1. It runs on Google's Android operating system, which is clearly targeted to be the iPhone killer. Android, unlike the iPhone operating system, is open source, and will run on any phone that manufacturers care to build for it. The G1 is the first commercially available hardware for it, and it happened to be available from my current cell phone company at a reasonable price due to me being due for a phone upgrade anyway.

As someone who's never owned a laptop or an iPod, let me tell you that internet and music that I carry around in my pocket feels like the future in a big way. It helps that Android runs really sleekly and integrates with all my Google account stuff that I already use everyday.  However, the device has early adopter written all over it though. For one, the camera in janky, to put it kindly. More importantly the application market feels like the wild west. Anyone can develop apps for Android, and so you see a staggering variety in quality and content. There are things that you'd never see on the Apple app store, like web browsers to replace the one that comes with the operating system, three different wikipedia apps competing with each other, and apps that, per the comments, don't actually work. Obviously, there a level of dedication and willingness to deal with failed experiments that's necessary for this kind of thing, but I'll be really interested to see what comes out of this competitive space.

It's my feeling that the iPhone will continue to serve the highest end of the smartphone market, but that Android powered phones will actually beat Apple out for pure market share in the future. Just by allowing it to run on any hardware, and allowing anyone to develop software for it, Google has a massive advantage long term. It also appeals to the hardcore with its integration of DRM-free MP3s from Amazon.com (and support for anywhere you happen to get them on your own if you want to do it manually).

Happy future everyone.