Google’s Android turns into underpants

Finally, all the hype and speculation surrounding Google’s mobile phone plans can be put to rest, as the company has announced its mobile strategy. As expected, there is no Google gPhone; rather, we get Google’s Android, an “open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices” that includes operating system, user interface and applications.

Google also announced the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of big mobile phone companies and operators (including HTC, Motorola, Qualcomm, Samsung, Telefonica, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile) who are currently working on developing Android-based phones and services.

So, should existing phone manufacturers be worried by Android? And more importantly, should we be excited by what’s on offer? Read on…

Despite people’s yearning for a Google gPhone, this was never going to happen. We’ve tracked the rumours this past year and published them as they surfaced, and what became clear over time was that Google was working on mobile phone software, rather than a gPhone device. So the announcement of Android is no great surprise.

As to how excited we should all be, this will, of course, depend entirely on what applications and phones emerge on the Android platform. Android’s only unique selling point at the moment is that it’s completely open, and so its value will increase as more people develop for it.

However, the Windows Mobile platform is not exactly closed (although you can’t change the operating system itself), while there are now thousands of Symbian applications that run quite happily on Nokia and other Symbian-based phones.

There have alos been a raft of other industry alliances, each of which has aimed to provide a ‘universal’ platform for developing applications on – and none of which has really set the world on fire. Even Motorola and Panasonic have experimented with Linux phones, but again, nothing big has come from it.

So just being open, then, will not be enough to disrupt the mobile phone marketplace, let alone to the degree that Apple’s iPhone has.

Google’s ultimate goal is to make browsing the Web on your phone as easy as it is on your desktop, enabling you to use the Web as a platform wherever you are. Part of Android, therefore, is a “very robust” HTML browser, although exact details are still sketchy.

Indeed, other than announcing Android, Google have given us very little to go on, other than this quote from Google CEO Eric Schmidt:

“This will be the first fully-integrated software stack, including an operating system and middleware, being made available under the most liberal open-source license ever given to mobile operators [and handset makers].”

It’s therefore too early to say exactly how much of a difference Android will make, and we won’t really know until the first Android-based phones become available (HTC reckon they’ll have one out by the second quarter of 2008).

I’m sceptical as to how well Android will do, though. Without the really big names such as Nokia and Vodafone on-board, Android can’t (yet) claim support from the whole mobile phone market. Equally, an Android phone will only really succeeed if enough innovative applications and services are developed for it to encourage people to choose an Android phone over something else.

Although I think the idea of the Android platform is a good one, and its openness is certainly to be commended, I can’t really see Android going anywhere. We’ll know in a year’s time, but in the meantime, file this under “disappointment”.

Ironically, Google’s own publicity makes the point better than I can. In a video on Google’s official blog promoting Android, several small kids are asked what a super phone would be able to do. One kid says “it would turn into underpants” – which is exactly what Android has turned into!

[Source: TechCrunch, Google]