T-Mobile G1 - Android continued

Unlike the iPhone, Android is a mobile OS. Sure the iPhone has an OS on which it runs, but you can’t throw the iPhone OS onto any old phone and have it work. Even if it was capable of running on the device, chances are you couldn’t get it to work.

Microsoft’s Windows Mobile falls somewhere between the iPhone and Google Android as far as portability. It comes standard with multiple devices, but you can’t install it if the phone wasn’t meant for it.

Android could be installed on any device that has the correct drivers and stacks for the phone. Does this mean that you will be able to install Android on your current smart phone and use it with your carrier? It might work, but chances are that it won’t. People have been able to “cook” Windows Mobile 6.1 to work on all kinds of devices, but this is a totally different bird. You need to have drivers and stacks and all the settings needed for your network. I have a feeling you will see phones that will be able to be flashed to an Android OS in late 2009 or 2010.

The iPhone has had quite a few important firmware upgrades which have needed to be done via a computer. The iPhone has iTunes, and Windows Mobile has ActiveSync, but what does Android have? They don’t have any software out yet to sync with computers, but in due time I’m sure there will be.

Currently, for updating Android, it’s all done over the air (OTA). It’s something that the others should start picking up on. Like Apple’s App store, Google will have their own store for OTA applications.

Google took a line out of iPhone's book and offers built-in music buying OTA. This is a great feature if you’re not at you computer but want to buy a new song. Google doesn’t go through iTunes; it uses Amazon instead. Windows Mobile isn’t anywhere in this picture, and is missing out big time on music and videos.

While we may see this as a great thing, I think the carriers are also seeing this as a good thing. What they see is customizable. They could modify the OS to work on any and every phone and have the same OS on each phone.

Verizon does something like this with their phones right now, but they chop the phone’s native OS and features to fit their OS. This cuts back a ton on customer service and testing, since the usage is the same on every phone. A totally customizable OS will allow every last detail to be customized and easily tweaked by their own programmers; they would not have to rely on the manufacturer for any updates.

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