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Google's Drool-Worthy Smartphone Software
Paul Sakuma / AP Photo
Android, the new mobile-phone software from Google, had a slow first year. But its expanding capabilities, rave reviews, and a catchy new ad campaign could vault it into iPhone territory.
It's been a year since Google entered the smartphone war and manufacturers started shipping phones that use Android, the company's software for mobile gadgets.
Chances are you don't own any of those phones. Until recently, Android—the software used to browse the Web, take pictures, and run applications—has only been featured on a handful of clunky devices for second-rate wireless networks like T-Mobile. One year after launch, there are an estimated 3 million Android units in the marketplace, according to Admob—an unimpressive sum when compared to the more than 20 million iPhone handsets Apple sold in roughly the same period.
All of these ingredients complete the recipe for which Android adoption can indeed “explode” in 2010.
But Android's second year looks much more promising. On Friday, Verizon Wireless began selling the Motorola Droid, the most drool-worthy Android phone to date. Verizon has blanketed the airwaves with advertisements that taunt the iPhone for lacking a physical keyboard and removable battery, and for its inability to run multiple applications simultaneously. "Everything iDon't, Droid Does," the ads promise.
The Droid, for all of its strengths, is unlikely to single-handedly slow the iPhone juggernaut. But at least 18 devices are expected to run Android by the end of the year, and there's now chatter that Android phones could overtake the iPhone in market share by 2012. In short, your next cellphone may well come with Google's software pre-installed.
"Android adoption is literally about to explode," Google CEO Eric Schmidt boasted last month, and he has cause to be optimistic: Cellphone manufacturers finally appear to have embraced Android. Motorola, once the reigning champ of the wireless market, is now betting on Android phones to fuel its comeback. Sanjay Jha, Motorola's chief executive, disclosed last week that the "vast majority" of the company's future phones will run Android, a shift in focus from other platforms, like Windows Mobile. And Motorola is being joined by several other well-known handset manufacturers, including Samsung, LG, and Sony Ericsson.
The most impressive new entrant among these handsets is Motorola's $199 Droid, which hit Verizon's shelves on Friday. In no minor feat of industrial design, Motorola has managed to squeeze a spacious touchscreen, a slide-out keyboard and a removable battery into an enclosure that is just a millimeter or two thicker than the iPhone's, if a bit boxier. Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal's technology columnist, says the Droid is not without flaws, but is "the best super-smart phone Verizon offers, the best Motorola phone I've tested and the best hardware so far to run Android."
Such a formidable slate of devices has given rise to reasoned predictions that Android will eclipse the iPhone in the next two or three years. (That's to say nothing of the non-phone devices that will run Android, from netbooks to e-book readers like Barnes & Noble's Nook.) The technology research firm Gartner last month forecast that by 2012, Android smartphones will number almost 76 million, beating the iPhone's market share.
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I'm very happy with my T-mobile My Touch, running Android - thank you very much.
Even the American propaganda around these gadgety offerings will not take away from the fact that the BlackBerry still outsells and will continue to outsell iPhone and Android put together. It's performance in the key functions, reliability etc. that make it an essential too. iPhone and it's wannabes are toys. (Yeah, I really need to 'find a sushi restaurant', tune my guitar and make flatulences sounds that often ...). Until the core communications experiences of those toys are rock solid, they will remain toys.
Toys??? You mean to tell me that if the iphone had the multi-carrier availability of RIM and was priced exactly the same it would still never be as successful because of its "performance in key functions"? What more do you want, exactly? Granted, AT&T's network performance can be shoddy, but thats the carrier's problem and not Apple's. Side by side, iPhones have a more polished UI, and more features integrated into a single device. Yes Blackberries make business communication easier. It's a niche market where they excel. Apple is more focused on a broader customer base. In a year or two when the AT&T contract is up, the only major complaint about the iPhone will be fixed and its market share will continue to increase, just like it has been anyway
So supposedly Verizon's CEO Ivan G. Seidenberg has told his investors that he wants the iPhone. I agree that Google's real advantage here will be in deploying over so many networks (including Verizon). But what happens in Q4 2010 if Apple launches on the Verizon network?
Also, this article is super timely. Yesterday Google bought AdMob Inc. for 750 million (quoted in the beginning of the piece). No doubt, the acquisition is part of Google's getting to ready to launch a real offensive this year.
On another note, yesterday would have been a good day to have been in on facebook apps early. Sigh... Nice article Ciarelli.
Got the Droid this past Friday. Not perfect, but very nice indeed. A replaceable battery and lack of iTunes lock-in puts the Droid ahead of the iPhone in my book, without even mentioning all the other goodies built into the Droid. It might well cause Verizon to question whether they'd want to carry the iPhone, even if they could. Why make the "me, too" play, when instead you could lead the day?
Thank you.
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