If Android is successful as a mobile platform, what does it mean for the Android Market app store? For one thing, it means a breath of fresh air for the Google Checkout online payment system.
Scanning the list of other Google products on the Android OS, there's push Gmail, instant synchronization with Google Calendar, a compass-navigable Maps application and Google Talk. The whole device is practically tied to your Google Account.
The marriage between Google web applications and the new Google G1 phone (announced Tuesday) means we're likely to see new Google application features -- especially mobile enhancements -- on the G1 first. It also means you may have to start giving Google your credit card information through Checkout in order to pay for the applications you buy through Android Market. Criminy. It was the last bastion of personal information I was keeping from Google.
I may sound a little like Chicken Little, but in actuality I'm not complaining too much. The fact is, I tend to drift towards Google's online products like Gmail and Calendar all too frequently. However, with products like Checkout, where a better, more widely-adopted option exists (PayPal), tying everything Android to my Google Account will force me to bypass these other, better options.
Development for Android is open to whomever, so even though Google is integrating its own online applications first, other companies can add theirs. When the operating system is released under the Apache license, then companies like eBay and Yahoo can take a branch of the system and replace every single Google application with their own equivalents. That's a big "if," though. But the scenario is in sharp contrast to the way Apple has locked down the iPhone's operating system. Apple forces iPhone owners to use the Apple-built apps by default, meanwhile rejecting third-party apps that duplicate any of the Apple apps' functionality -- no matter how shaky its arguments about duplication may be.
Until the operating system is opened up, the G1's early adopters will own a neat smartphone, but they will sell their digital soul to Google's servers in the process. Luckily, we can trust Google with all of our personal information now and forever, right? Right?
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