So my last phone one day decided it didn’t want to stick around till 2011, and thought it would be funny if it bricked itself.
Meet my latest toy, the Motorola Defy.
Things had come a long way for Android. There’s more Androids than iPhones. I still remember my first phone being the second device ever in existence to have had Google’s little mobile OS.
Now we see like 20 new phones every month just saturating the market. It’s insane.
But we wouldn’t be where we are now if it weren’t for Apple. Android quietly picked up on the limitations of the iPhone OS (no background services, restricted publishing rights, fixed memory, irremovable battery, limited hardware, no Flash, no personalisation—the things that Apple seemed philosophically intent on being in control of) and these features soon became stuff we Android-like couldn’t live without.
Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone is a beautiful example of awesome user experience, but in all that grandeur Apple made the same mistake they did with Macintosh back in the days. The biggest reason, IMHO, why Microsoft annihilated them in the desktop OS market was because Apple insisted on controlling the hardware. By offering a free[1] and open source mobile operating system these manufacturers saw instant opportunity to reduces costs as well as rival Apple: (interesting play, GOOG).
Now it seems like all the phone makers have jumped on the bandwagon. Well except for Blackberry, Microsoft and Nokia. Nokia being far too late into the game, abandoned their own OS and opted for Microsoft’s revamped new offering with a few unexpected handshakes and billions of dollars flying in every direction.
Does this mean us Android fanatics are one step closer to the dream of a united New World Order of Androids in every pocket?
Probably not. I’ll gather my reasons and report back in a few days, so stick around for more.
Stay tuned to the Android channel on this blog and expect some good App recommendations, useful tutorials and passionately opinionated rants not too long in the future.
Footnotes
1: Note despite the Android project being totally free and open source, manufacturers still have to pay Google for licensing fees to install Google related products like Gmail and Google Maps. This might not seem to be a big problem, but remember Google Marketplace (your AppStore for Androids) is a commercial product owned by the big G as well.*
