Google's shattered dreams

Pocket Gamer:

With the recent launch of the Nexus One, HTC Desire, and Motorola Droid, things are certainly looking positive for Google's Android mobile platform.

Everywhere you turn there seems to be yet another handset manufacturer joining the cause, and with the freshly-announced HTC EVO 4G grabbing well-deserved column-inches the world over, 2010 is shaping up to be the year where Android truly asserts itself as the portable OS of choice.

However, despite these highly encouraging signs there's a massive flaw in Google's strategy which could undo all the hard-earned success accomplished so far: fragmentation.

[livewires]

Yer im not sure if my magic will dever get updated even through they said it will by the end of april but it has been discontinued by vodaphone

Anyway im gettign a desire greatest phone on the planet (my opinion before a flameware from iphone users) running sexy 2.1.

[RussDeBuss]

my desire just arrived 30 minutes ago, ssssssshhhheeeeexxxyyyyyy!!!!1

[silvacrest]

for companies like HTC the sense UI makes up for it

motorola tried with motoblur and its okay if your into social nextworking but even then it slows the phone down after a while

[duplissi]

well sense is nice, but every now and then its lags a bit on my sprint hero.

[Revvin]

I'm a Blackberry Storm user at the moment but I'm considering either an Android based handset or an iPhone in around 5 months time. It does concern me that Android developers have to cater for a wider variety of handsets and handset capabilities over the iPhone whose hardware and software are set in stone. What is the Android app market like now? I'm not really looking for games, more an all round utility phone for my email, web browsing and Sat Nav would be a bonus and what kind of document support is there? I can view spreadsheets on my Blackberry which is useful to me.

[sorceror171]

You can check out Androlib.com to see what kind of apps are available. My Droid comes with Quickoffice which has opened up an Excel spreadsheet and a Word doc for me (I've only had it about a week).

The browser on the Droid is awesome - no Flash "yet", but otherwise *very* nice. Email is very good, but the current Gmail/Email app can't accept calendar invites in .ics (iCal) format; you can see that you got an invite, but can't accept or decline until you get to a PC. No big deal for me, but could be a dealbreaker for some heavy business users.

The navigation is at least as good as TomTom was on my old Treo, and better in some ways - you can just say out loud, "Navigate to [restaurant name]", and it'll find the nearest one and send you right to it.

The iPhone is definitely more mature and has more UI polish, but the Android platform has a lot of potential. If you're a bit more technical/geeky - which I cheerfully admit I am - a phone like the Droid is wonderful. If your primary focus is business, you may want an iPhone or even an upgraded Blackberry.

[duplissi]

get an htc phone like the nexus one, hero, droid eris, or especially the evo 4g (first 4g phone) htc has a flash player that they pre install, but it doesnt work all the time, and wont work for sites like hulu, etc. but when most phones have no flash at all its quite nice.

[frankymv]

Its iPhone OS wich has more than double the mobile OS market share than Android

[silvacrest]

iphone OS is to restrictive even after jailbreaking

android is very open especially after rooting, and with phones like the G1 you change the entire interface to the sense UI, its pretty sweet

[mrv321]

And Vista/7 has more than 4 times the market share of Ubuntu 9.1 but guess which one I'm using... it's the one which offers freedom.

Just because it's popular doesn't always mean it's best. Personally I find the iPHONE UI to be cluttered, I haven't used it much but still.

[OpenGL]

Enjoy not being able to multi-task with your iPhone OS. Also, I could never go back from my current phone's 854x480 display to the pathetic 480x320 screen on the iPhone.

[Kushan]

The thing is, you should never buy ANYTHING based on what it can "potentially" do, only what it DOES do and what it can do for you, because sometimes devices never live up to their potential.
I'm looking into getting a HTC Desire myself as it looks incredible, but I'm aware that when Android 2.2 or 2.5 or whatever comes out, I'll probably have to do without the upgraded features. I'm fine with that, I wanted the phone for what it can do now, not what it might do in the future.
And in saying that, if you REALLY want the latest update, there's plenty of home-cooked ROMs out there that are as good, if not better than, their "official" counterparts. Of course, you do have to flash the phone yourself, which can be dangerous and scary, but that's half the fun of keeping up with tech =P

[Karum]

But the Sense UI is so awesome that I can get by without it. I know tey will eventually update it but until then I'm a happy user.

[Myst]

Not a big phone person, but just recently ordered the HTC Hero phone (after a much heated debate within' myself over it and the Samsung Moment). Just upgrading from the Rant so any of the phones would have done nicely, though I believe the Sense UI was something that has won me over. As well as just overall 'working' the samsung moment didn't seem to do that well.

Anyway I really don't care to much for 2.1, I mean moving from just a standard messaging phone to a Android my expectations aren't that high anyway.

[Tempata]

I had an A900 and upgraded to the Moment, I love this phone =) i was debating getting the hero also..in the end the slide out keyboard was the deal maker

[LinuxGuru]

No...not really. Android has a LOT of catching up to do in regards to the iPhone.

And for those of you drawing Microsoft comparisons...shut the hell up. Apple mobile OS is used and loved because it WORKS and it works WELL. In Apple's mobile division, the quality is speaking for itself by putting up massive numbers.

You can cram 3749832473246324 features into an OS, but if it isn't smooth, intuitive, easy, approachable, familiar and aesthetic, then it won't be the leader.

Android still has to prove itself, and that will only happen once it's toppled the iPhone. Until then, it's only a good 2nd best.

And you know what, Apple's Mobile OSX and Android OS both share a common Linux / Unix ancestry. So I'm happy for both of them, but I recognize the leader when I see it, and for several years and for the foreseeable future, Apple wins.

[Karum]

Nokia still lead the way in hardware and Symbian still leads the way in the mobile OS world.

However I would agree that if Apple and the iPhone continue their momentum then they will likely topple Symbian, they still need to sell a lot of hardware though to take over Nokia but I think they are making inroads there too.

Personally for me I went with an Android phone because the iPhone hasn't done anything new compared to the original version which didn't entice me in the first place. I wanted something different and Android on my HTC Hero is awesome.

[XXXRATED]

apple is already declining in sales as more and more apple users bail for android while the number of android users climbs faster than anyone currently these users are not going back to apple and when the next iphone comes out and is the same old same old the 1.5 dual core snapdragon phone will be released on tmobile and more will jump ship.

This reminds me of a competition between the ps3 wii and 360 where the underdog ps3 is undeniably going to crush the competition.

apple= fail half ass java support no flash no open source not user friendly quit smoking dope and come to android.

android= full java flash open source google allows rooting and roms and free turn by turn talking nav google earth video recording ect ect ect I could go on on and on.