Today T-Mobile released the first mobile phone based around Google's mobile handset operating system know as Google Android. Continue reading to find some of the details fresh from today's press conference, along with some information about what Google Android offers to cell phone customers.
Android is an operating system and development platform written by Google for mobile phones and devices. You can compare it to Symbian, Windows Mobile or the iPhone OS in terms of general functionality. Unlike the iPhone OS (but somewhat similar to Symbian / WinMobile) Android can run on any given platform that meets the hardware requirements for the operating system.
Android promises to be a drastic improvement over current phone operating systems, save perhaps the iPhone. It has all the underlying features of the modern phone operating systems, strong network support (web, messaging, etc) and the development is done with a dialect of Java (as opposed to Objective-C on the iPhone.) This last piece may be the biggest motivator. Currently to develop applications for the iPhone you must have a Mac, understand Mac/Objective-C development, and learn the iPhone SDK. You also have to pay at least $99 for the right to submit an app to the AppStore and hope the application passes muster. The Android Marketplace will be different in that you simply need to register for an account, upload the software, and go. In all fairness to Apple, they do provide a needed service (and the terms of the Android Marketplace haven't been fully fleshed out) but some have complained of Apple's oversight/control. You could view Android as a more PC-like distribution mechanism - a free for all if you will versus the controlled environment of the AppStore. Either way, this will definitely be interesting.
In true chicken and egg fashion, Android is useless without the hardware to run it on. Enter HTC and T-Mobile. You may not know much about HTC but they've developed some very interesting mobile phone handsets over the past few years, running Windows Mobile and the like. A new version, called the G1, will be the first version (of the G-1) for the American market, and the the first to support Android with T-Mobile as the carrier. A little about the phone from the T-Mobile Press Release:
- Touch Screen
- Full Web Browsing
- 3MP Camera with auto focus
- QWERTY slide-out keyboard
- 3G Support (in some markets)
- Google Apps and Android Market access
It's worth noting that there will be many more handsets in the future to run Android, and several are rumored to release soon. If you're a gadget/phone hound that always needs the newest thing you likely can't go wrong with Android. Otherwise, you may want to wait and see what happens next. Either way, with Android and the iPhone, it's going to be one heck of a ride.