The Google Android Platform

I read about Open Handset Alliance‘s Android platform and cellular phones with great interest. The web is full of specs, reviews, comparisons and the like. I just can’t help but share the following thoughts:

• Sometimes it seems Google’s Android is the second touch screen platform after Apple’s iPhone

I can’t understand why Android-based HTC G1 and other touch devices are automatically compared to the iPhone. Yes, it is a great looking device. It has a great touch screen. And that’s where innovation ends and limitations begin.

Great as the iPhone may (or not) be, it’s not clearly and objectively superior to Microsoft’s Windows Mobile devices hardware-, software- nor appearance-wise. Plus, Windows (Mobile and its previous incarnations) has been, so far, dominant in the touch arena. So, how come the iPhone (a new comer with plenty of flaws of its own) is the ad hoc point of reference? And how come all Windows Mobile’s long-standing features (touch screen, great sofware library, multitasking) are rarely mentioned?

• Android, anyone? Sure, on what hardware?

Maybe I understand a new platform like Android needs to come with new hardware for psychological (marketing) reasons. Now that’s over and done with, why not introduce Android for old and new hardware? Wasn’t one of Linux’s advantages better performance on old PCs? I’m sure I would love to run Android on my current Windows Mobile Phone but I fear this won’t happen any day soon, if at all. How about selling the HTC Touch HD (my favorite, in the absence of an Android phone with no hardware keyboard. With a camera flash, please) with a choice between Android and Windows Mobile? Better yet, sell it able to dual-boot both platforms? I would buy it right now. Now this is not so, I just have to wait and I am not happy about it at all.

Consider how nice it would be to compare different platforms’ sales and performance on the same hardware (isn’t that what Apple avoids at all cost on the PC market?)! How different the HTC G1 is from the Touch HD or any other current model?

It is my prediction that we will see Android and Windows Mobile running on the same hardware not later than 2009. And this will be the start of a new era on the “choice” and “objective comparison” fronts.