Google has just released his new Mobile OS called Android, and we can already see websites, magazines and mobile phones holders comparing Android to the iPhone OS.
What I can see (on the web, or just by speaking with friends) is a lot of disappointment : Android OS isn’t the iPhone OS killer.

Actually, Apple did a tremendous work with iPhone OS. It’s quick, reactive, ergonomic, easy to use… It’s hard to a new system (even designed by Google) to beat Apple.

Ok, it’s not as good as iPhone OS but let’s discuss some points :

1. iPhone OS is only for Mac mobile phone

There is a point that we mustn’t forget : iPhone OS will only run on a Mac mobile. And for the moment, only one mobile phone (if we consider that the iPhone 3G is only an upgrade of the iPhone) runs this OS.

2. Android is OpenSource

The big difficulty when designing an OS is running this OS in different hardwares from different builders.
And this is where Google is really strong : he provides a mobile OS that can run on multiple hardwares. This OS is quite good : efficient, reliable… And most important thing : Android is OpenSource. That means, every mobile builder (Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG… ) can put Android on their mobile phones and modify the source.

Android may become the new standard OS for mobile phone. They can all have the same basic, and (surprise) Google is behind that.

3. Android Programs are written in Java

An other thing which is also really important, is that Android implements Dalvik (a java virtual machine). That means each application for Android is coded in Java. The community of Java developers is so huge, we can easily foresee an exponential increase of Android homemade programs (whereas when coding an iPhone application you must learn a specific language Cocoa).
Google has already provided all the tools to developp an Android program (an Android SDK, full API, eclipse plugin, debugger, tutorials… ).

So, disappointment or not?

Is Google Android a disappointment? If you strictly compare with the iPhone : the answer is YES. But if you look a bit further more on what Android is, what it provides, what is its future, Android is NOT a disappointment. Android may be the new standard OS for mobile phones. It might grow bigger and more efficient thanks to the help of an active community of opensource and java developers. In fact the real opponent of Android is not iPhone but Windows Mobile.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 5th, 2008 at 12:35 pm and is filed under uncategorized, mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.