T-Mobile's, first Google Android-enabled phone officially announced Tuesday. Now all we have to do is wait for them to go on sale October 22.
Today's announcement is the first time the public, via journalists, get a hands-on look into what the Android mobile OS will look like when it is released as open source later this year.
The general verdict? Well, it doesn't look like it's an iPhone killer – the reaction has been lukewarm. It plays catch up with a lot of the features iPhone has, and doesn't quite keep up with some of them – most notably, the robust media player features the iPhone, and the underlying iPod, boasts.
To its credit, it probably would've blown away the first generation of the iPhone, prior to the introduction of Apple's App Store.
Some features:
- Android has the same finger scrolling on the home screen as the iPhone. Unlike the iPhone, you can also litter the desktop with pictures and gadgets
- Google will have software, including some winners of the Android Developer's challenge. A bar scanning comparison shopping app was included. Also, a picture and map meshing application was also available
- The Android Market, Google's answer to the iPhone App Store, will be included in the new devices. It promises to be more open to contributions, making for a possibly messy but lucrative affair. Also, Amazon is acting as the devices' iTunes, offering up its DRM-free mp3 store
- Android has copy and paste. No matter how much Apple seems to chug along on cool features, this is one top ten wanted feature the iPhone has inexplicably not yet figured out
- An exciting feature is the ability to multitask applications. This means your programs can keep running after you close them and offer you reminders or integrate with other application APIs in the background – much like any desktop operating system. Apple doesn't have this, but it does sport 170 more hours of standby or sleep time. Personally, I'd trade off this feature for less trips to the power outlet
- There is no standard video playing beyond YouTube on the Android. In comparison, the iPhone is able to play movies, videocasts and television programs with ease. I expect third party applications will fill this gap
- Syncing looks to be pretty complicated. Mentions of getting media to the device appear to be with the integrated mini SD card. It's unclear if there is any other way to sync photos and music to the device unless you download it directly using the internet connection
- Android sports a full webkit-powered browser. According to the press conference, it's "Chrome lite."
The device itself is a nice side-kick friendly version of the iPhone, and it packs everything we've seen from HTC devices over the past few years. I won't go into the actual hardware specifics – we leave that to the very capable hands of the Gadget Lab.
What we didn't know that we know now is the phone will be capable of when it is released en mass to Google's base – the tech hungry developers and gadget junkies like our loved readers (aka. you).
We expect when the open source operating system releases, Android will be the playground for smart phones. If Google is good at anything beyond search and advertising, it's catering to development. If you look beyond the carefully guarded secrets before launch, this is the one leg up Android has over the iPhone. Where Apple keeps contributing developers on a short leash, Google gives developers free reign.
The application platform and software tools are all built in Java, a programming language practically most computer science grads would've had at least one class in. This adds a level of universality to the phone, since Symbian, Windows Mobile and Blackberry are all capable of running applications written in Java.
What I also expect to see with mobile phones is what has been historically happening with desktop systems. Android looks to be the developer-centric and very powerful operating system that will run on practically anything, like Windows and Linux. The iPhone is the mac, a sleek and design centric device which runs some programs well, and runs them beautifully on Apple-only hardware.
One thing is for sure, the line between cell phone and desktop systems are now blurry – same with the mobile web versus the desktop web.
We'll see what the market does, and whether people care of the complexities of their new smartphone's technology over the very basic motivator of new technology: price.
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