I think you think that Android was created to compete with the iPhone... - DeWitt Clinton

Nope. I think that Android is a smartphone OS just like Windows Mobile and the iPhone OS. So it competes with them both. - Dare Obasanjo

The user experience should be portable across devices and device types. Microsoft has not been able to achieve this. Apple is not going to try. - scott anderson

A better way to see it is as a way of competing with dumb phones. - DeWitt Clinton

DeWitt: I think you have started drinking your own kool-aid ;) People only have one cell phone. So any cell phone competes with all other cell phones. iPhone competes with dumb phones, and Android phones compete with the iPhone. Features and cost play a part, as they do with every other purchasing decision. Saying they don't compete is just expectation-setting, like the candidates telling the press how bad they are at debating before every debate. - Bret Taylor

Hehe. No, my argument is that now that there is an iPhone quality operating system available, open source, for free, there will be no excuse for every device not to be a smart phone. - DeWitt Clinton

Looks like Bret beat me to the punch. :) - Dare Obasanjo

Open isn't enough to win. It has to be good too. Note though that Android != G1, so even if you don't fancy that device, just wait.... there will be more. Did you read how companies are jumping in with Android? E.g. Motorola putting 350 people on it (allegedly). - Dion Almaer

Viz "people only have one cell phone" that may be true in the US but from where I'm sitting I can see 2 of my mobile phones. In many parts of the world the number of phones is greater than 1. According to wikipedia this is true in 50 countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Adewale Oshineye

Agreed with Dion that open isn't alone enough to win. But open *and* a phone that is as good as the iPhone, and thus arguably at least the second best overall, and now you're talking profound. And there are something like what, 10 million iPhones, but almost 4 billion phones in existence. That's 99.75% of the market that can be upgraded, even if the end goal for Android isn't sales numbers (sales are upside for the carriers to realize). That's not Kool-Aid - that's a paradigm shift. - DeWitt Clinton

I've been quiet publicly so far about my enthusiasm for Android. But now that the covers are coming off I can say that I truly believe that Android has the potential to change the world. I think of it like this -- Google would not have have been possible without open source software, particularly the GNU tools and compilers and the Linux kernel, and the open web ecosystem to nuture it. What future Googles will Android make possible? I honestly don't know -- only time will tell, and that's why I'm excited. - DeWitt Clinton

There will still be a market for cheap dumb phones going forward. They can be made to run Android and customized by adding one or more Android apps locked into the device by the carrier. The software will be free to the carriers and the hardware commodites. I don't know if Apple and Microsoft will want to compete in the dumb phone market. - scott anderson

Android is a smart phone OS, not a dumb phone OS. Part of what makes a phone a dumb phone is hardware limitations. No one at Google has been talking publicly about putting Android on phones like the ones in the story at http://www.nytimes.com/2008... and even then Symbian is more likely to make it happen given its popularity and maturity. Nice rap though. - Dare Obasanjo

True, to a point. But the dumbest of dumb hardware today is smarter than the smart hardware just a few years ago. A couple of years from now, just try buying a device without a capacitive touch screen, an 802.11 chip, a camera, flash storage, etc. And if you were building an ultra-low cost device for developing nations, wouldn't you chose the open source platform that was free of licensing fees? - DeWitt Clinton

And back to the original point, is no one else blown away by the fact that version 1.0 of Android -- the first public release -- is already being compared with the very best mobile OS, the iPhone OS? That Dare would even feel the need to write that post? - DeWitt Clinton

If Symbian is so popular and mature then why are they trying to steal the Android / OHA game plan? As far as I know Symbian will still have to cater to the OMA. That is a severe handicap for them. BTW, my definition of dumb phones would include a dedicated map device that you could talk to and a phone that only has a voice interface, something you would want to have while jogging, etc. You would operate all these devices over the same networks. - scott anderson

Dewitt, you should be a politician with your ability to switch positions so quickly. The point is that today Android is a competitor to smartphone OSes like Symbian, WinMobile and the iPhone OS. Of these Symbian is the most popular and iPhone has the most hype. So unsurprisingly the press is all about Apple vs. Google since is the Brangelina of trade press news. - Dare Obasanjo

Haha. I have the family name for it, too. : ) But I'll cede you the point. The Android OS *is* competitive with other smart phone operating systems, and maybe even to their market share. But what excites me is that the ecosystem -- the openness, the licensing, etc -- around Android is *nothing* like the other smart phone operating systems. Android is inventing an entirely new class there. So even if it failed against the smart phones (and I don't think it will) it will still change everything. - DeWitt Clinton

"That's not Kool-Aid -- that's a paradigm shift." ??? [reads packet of Google Paradigm Shift] hmmm... sugar, fructose, citric acid, calcium phosphate...Yellow 6 lake, Red 40 lake... artificial flavor.... What flavor? I honestly don't know -- only time will tell, and that's why I'm excited!!! Woo!!! - Karim

[grabs nearest passing stranger by the lapels] This drink has the potential to change the WORLD!!!!!! - Karim

Personally, I think we should be comparing the G1 to Apple's first phone, which was called the E1. You might know it as the ROKR: http://bit.ly/2062si . And just as Apple's OS and the phones that ran the OS got much better over time, so too will Android phones. With an open-source OS, anyone could write Exchange support. Dare, where are the docs on Exchange's APIs, just so people can learn about them? - Matt Cutts

Here you go - http://www.microsoft.com/about... - Dare Obasanjo

ROKR OS was not created by apple, not the slightest, Motorola made it look like the ipods of the time to add that extra oomph for the marketing department, but when everyone got to play with it they hated it. Not to mention the fact that it only came with 128 MB of ram out of the box. - Stepan Mazurov

have to agree with Stepan -- the ROKR E1 was basically a older Motorola E398 onto which Apple glommed a single application called the iTunes Client. (Which they then intentionally crippled to hold very few songs, so as not to cannibalize iPod sales.) You don't want to confuse a single app with an entire OS. [thinks about Chrome] Or *do* you? Muahahaha... :-D - Karim

Compare Mac OS 7,8,9 to Windows 3.0. Arguably, the former was way more usable. Guess which one achieved market dominance. The open system on an open architecture will beat the closed system on a closed architecture in the long run. (It wasn't obvious in 1989 that Apple was in trouble --- their profits weren't really affected until 1998 or so) - Piaw Na

Piaw, we're all dead in the long run. It seems pretty myopic to reduce the lessons of Windows vs. Mac and iPod vs. MP3 players to "openness wins in the long run". The best value for customers wins in the long run. Being able to run more apps on Windows proved to be more valuable to customers than whatever else Mac had to offer. This isn't the same dynamic in MP3 players (good luck waiting for openness to win) but it might be for cell phones. - Dare Obasanjo

One thing people seem to forget is that Google has so much cash flow that it frequently stakes out positions in markets with no immediate (apparent) strategic goal. The cost of developing Android has been miniscule for Google - perhaps Google just wanted to get in there with an iPhone OS competitor before someone else did. - Rob Sterling