The smart money's on Android

09-09-2009

by Ralph Averbuch

We're awash with new smartphones but which or what will be last man standing?

Is it just this blogger, or does it feel, despite the gloomy economic outlook, as if we’re rapidly approaching another crossroads in the evolution of the web? In the last few months we’ve been hit by announcements from all the major handset manufacturers of their latest smartphone offerings, all notable for their practical use as mobile web-enabled devices. First it was Apple’s souped up iPhone, quickly followed by the innovative Palm Pre and its Web OS. Hot on its heels we heard of HTC and the much improved Android powering the Hero handset. And last but not least, we have Nokia which has just announced its N900 which, after a few false starts, really does look like a contender for this rapidly maturing market. We’ve also just heard that Palm wants to spread the smartphone love by bringing out a cheaper and more basic smartphone on the heels of the Palm Pre, called the Pixi. Of course, what this means in practice is that we are now spoilt for choice for brainy web-enabled bricks. Where it was pretty much the iPhone or a Blackberry aimed at the great unwashed masses, now we have a range of hungry phone makers with either their own OS or Android. We ought not to discount Windows Mobile of course, but it looks to have failed to win the public imagination in the way that Palm, Apple and now Google has done courtesy of Android. The last seems very powerful simply because, as an open platform, it attracts lots of developers keen to produce apps. And this, perhaps more than anything else, may be the killer stroke. The iPhone’s success has been tied to the App store and a massive catalogue of handy little tools that makes the device adopt a chameleon-like set of guises. That’s something other manufacturers are catching onto… fast. And it could be where Apple falls down yet again. Apple has always been overly keen on its walled garden approach to business. Yet, in creating this new enthusiasm for smarter phones, it may also have created a marketplace of people hungry to go where they like, when they like and use whatever they like. Apple, as a habitual gatekeeper, is going to find it tough to let go of control, and that’s why Android looks like the best long-term bet for what most of us will be using on our smartphones a few years from now. And if all this seems too speculative, just remember that in 2000 no-one imagined that a small upstart called Google would come and steal Yahoo's thunder.

Comments

Email a friend

RSS feed

Socialite

Track this story's companies and topics

» Define your own keyword alert

Recent posts
Music sales get more social with Spotify
People make 140 letters priceless
Will Twitter ride the mobile wave?
Hope in the fight against censorship
Smartphones: the tipping point's coming
A malignant threat from our mobiles
Social takes the fight to search
Make room for the message
Apple's new court based tactics
Welcome back King Content