Droid/Android

[asdf]

anyone own one?

[shlingdawg]

I do.

[asdf]

how do you like it?

I am not that keen on the mytouch or iphone.. so considering the driod at this time.

[theking648]

I do, I'm lovin it. I'm posting this from my droid. It syncs my facebook contacts with my phone contacts, I have all 7 of my emails pulled into my droid, and it has a desktop where I have my widgets.

[shlingdawg]

I have the iPod touch and apart from the plethora of Apps, I actually prefer the Droid for browsing and email. The app store is about 1/10 of ipods, bit it still has many useful products. The phone works fine and text messages are much easier to follow as it puts them in a thread. At&t doesn't have the coverage necessary for my travels, so it was a no brainer to go with the Droid.

[shlingdawg]

I was going to mention that if you are thinking that the slide out keyboard on the Droid is a selling point - get your hands on it and give it a go. I never use it as I think it was poorly designed and for me, it is very difficult to use. The onscreen keyboards (portrait for one handed or landscape for two) works great.

Other nice features are the docking station (turns your Droid into a desktop clock/photo picture frame/weather station and the car dock coupled with the navigation feature that is AWESOME!!!

Just in the short time I have owned it, the number of Apps available for the device has increased a bunch. I recommend going to a Verizon retailer and getting your hands on it.

[James_B_Wads2000]

text messages are much easier to follow as it puts them in a thread.
http://www.realvail.com/images/tomblog/iphone_text_message.jpg

How is Droid different than Iphone?



James

[accadacca]

text messages are much easier to follow as it puts them in a thread.
http://www.realvail.com/images/tomblog/iphone_text_message.jpg

How is Droid different than Iphone?



James
http://www.spiffynova.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/oh-snap.jpg

[BruteForce]

But can you natively sync with Exchange? Calendar/Tasks/Mail ?

[Sombeech]

Looks like Droid has around 22,000 apps now.

[accadacca]

But can you natively sync with Exchange? Calendar/Tasks/Mail ?
iPhone = Check.


Looks like Droid has around 22,000 apps now.
Apple hit a million back in November.

[theking648]

i'm working on a bunch of screenshots right now i'll post them soon.

[theking648]

ok my desktop
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l280/theking648/desktop-2.jpg

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l280/theking648/bogley.jpg

contacts sync with facebook.
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l280/theking648/contacts.jpg

text messaging bundled into threads
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l280/theking648/messaging.jpg

google earth, the blue dot is my GPS location.
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l280/theking648/earth.jpg


this is just scratching the surface.. i think my favorite part is when i go to a web page and there is a phone number in just plain text (no link) i can select it on the web page and will automatically start calling.

when i was looking for parts i was browsing this site. http://www.usedpartscentral.com/search_utah.htm

from my droid all i had to do was select the number and it would call them. when they didn't have what i was looking for i ended the call and selected the next number. i ended up calling about 40 people before i found someone with the part i needed.

[asdf]

what about transferring music... is it really drag and drop.

BTW itunes blows

[theking648]

what about transferring music... is it really drag and drop.

BTW itunes blows

i have pandora, imeem, and my own music. all i do is plug the droid into the computer and mount the drive. drag my music files anywhere onto the phones drive and droid does the rest.

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l280/theking648/apps2.jpg http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l280/theking648/music.jpg

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l280/theking648/music2.jpg

[Sombeech]

Damn, that Droid is lookin' FREEKIN SWEET.

How much did it cost by the way?

[asdf]

So far the best deal I have found is $150 per phone w/ 2year contract and no activation fees. $140 a month for 2 lines with 1400 shared min and one data plan ...... but after fees/taxes/BS I am sure it will be more.

If anyone can do better I am all ears.

[theking648]

all i can say is thank god for a share plan.

the phone cost me $199, but after three weeks the $100 mail in rebate arrived so it was $100. the data plan is per smartphone so if you get two droids you have to have 2 data plans. so the data plan is $30/month on top of the plan we have is about $30 for me. so i pay $60 to my dad every month.. he pays $147 for our 3 phones, he has insurance on his. plus a ton of minutes because it's a business phone.

but if i was to do it as a single plan it would be around $100/month.

in that case, hell no. :lol8:

[asdf]

I was planning on getting the droid and a non-smart phone with mp3 player and a 3.5mm jack.

[tmartenst]

I just got the Droid Eris and I am stoked on it. I did a bunch of research on the difference between Droid and Droid Eris and the Eris was definitely for me. I don't text so didn't need the slide out keypad, they do basically the same thing. A bit of a smaller screen but looks good to me. Smaller & sleeker than both the iphone and Droid. It also has 6 different homepages to the Droid's 3. The other concern was that the Eris was not running Android 2.0 but Verizon has confirmed the upgrade in January. I had a new every two and right now they have a buy one get one free deal so it cost me $50 out of pocket and got a free one for my wife. My first smart phone and not looking back.

I did a ton of research and wound up with this. Do a compare between the two and see what you think. I never went to a Verizon store but many said they went to buy the Droid and ended up leaving with the Eris.

[asdf]

I wish someone would create an app that would make a smart phone work as a wireless remote for a SLR. How sick would that be? ... but I dont think the phones have IR sensors.

[shlingdawg]

text messages are much easier to follow as it puts them in a thread.
http://www.realvail.com/images/tomblog/iphone_text_message.jpg

How is Droid different than Iphone?



James

Not much, but it's starkly different from a BlackBerry.

[IntrepidXJ]

I wish someone would create an app that would make a smart phone work as a wireless remote for a SLR. How sick would that be? ... but I dont think the phones have IR sensors.

there's an app for the iPhone that does that....but it requires the camera be hooked up to a wi-fi equipped computer....because of the lack of IR

[asdf]

24 hours with my Droid and so far so good. Seem much more customizable then the iphone

Can anyone recommend some cool widgets?

[stefan]

24 hours with my Droid and so far so good. Seem much more customizable then the iphone


sweet summit. please post more of your impressions about it and what you like. i'm interested. i think it's about time that something different competes on the level of the iphone. the future will be interesting!

out of curiosity, summit, when you're on a browser on the droid posting a comment on bogley, how does the matrix of emoticons affect the speed of using the text input window.

[asdf]

out of curiosity, summit, when you're on a browser on the droid posting a comment on bogley, how does the matrix of emoticons affect the speed of using the text input window.

I will test it out.
One thing that sucks is the lack of the pinch zoom after using the iphone its definitely a feature I am missing out on.

Driod photo of my camera setup from tonight's sunset on Utah Lake
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4016/4258170770_31ee74edab.jpg

[beachbum222]

On the VZ tavigator or google earth can you enter a GPS cordinate and have it find it like a GPS? If so does it work in remote places like a true GPS or only in the network coverage ares like the current VZnavigator i have on my LG dare?

Thanks :mrgreen:

[asdf]

On the VZ tavigator or google earth can you enter a GPS cordinate and have it find it like a GPS? If so does it work in remote places like a true GPS or only in the network coverage ares like the current VZnavigator i have on my LG dare?

Thanks :mrgreen:

The Droid uses google maps, I can view any map that I have created on maps.google.com directly on my phone.
As far as working off the grid I have no idea.. yet.

[asdf]

I installed the Swype Android Beta last night and its now my default on screen keyboard ... ridiculously awesome. After playing with it only for 10min its obvious that this will be the industry standard for any touch screen phone.

http://www.androidcentral.com/download-beta-version-swype-android


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCWwuIXxBuI&feature=related

[DiscGo]

I don't get how swype works. I guess I'll try it out and see how it well it does on windows mobile.

[DiscGo]

Wow. It kind of creeps me out how well it works. It really just knows what I want it to type. Have you guys ever read any of those email forwards where you can have all the words mispelled but as long as the first and the last letters are correct, your mind doesn't notice? It must be something along those lines.


Example:

I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.

[theking648]

I found swype for android and this is typed with swype.its harder when youdon't know the kiteboard.

[asdf]

using swype exclusively now, also been testing out the dolphin browser that has a built-in punch zoom feature.

[shlingdawg]

I tried Swype on my Droid and liked it, but the messaging app did not. I had messages that were continually returned to me, telling me that my message was not in English. I ended up having to remove the keyboard and go back to the default one. It's a good idea, but definitely takes some getting used to.

[Pelon1]

There is a Redbox app that gives the codes for the free movie everyday. Haven't tried getting a free movie yet. :haha:

[asdf]

downloaded and tested the redbox app and it works.. free movies~!

Installed Quake 3.. hard to play with the controls but still awesome.

http://www.droid-life.com/2010/02/download-and-install-quake-3-on-your.html
(you can download Kwaak3 by scanning the attached qr below)

[theking648]

so last Sunday I decided to take the plunge and root my phone.

...

best decision I ever made. I got it rooted, installed a ROM that has 5 desktops (some have 7), and is based off the nexus one. also 2.1!!!! :banana:

anyone else tried it yet?

[asdf]

I have been flirting with the idea but I have been waiting for the 2.1 update. I heard that some people have had some nightmarish issues with their rooted phones being updated to 2.1 automatically... but maybe that's been resolved.

[Don]

Man, they are on top the advertising...

32718

[asdf]

Any cool new apps out there?

I recently replaced my home screen with LauncherPro, the scrolling icon bar is pretty awesome and my home pages are now clutter free.
I also been enjoying the tapatalk home page widget, latest posts on bogley are just a single tap away.

[accadacca]

Tapatalk has had some nice updates lately. I like the new thread layout. :2thumbs:

[asdf]

are you using the tapatalk widget on your iphone4?

[accadacca]

Nah, not the widget. How does that work?

[asdf]

Really a glorified shortcut :haha:
I can put it anywhere on my desktop(s) and it will pull up all the latest posts with a single touch.

36165

36166

[accadacca]

Ah that's sweet! Tapatalk looks a bit different on Droid.

[DiscGo]

Android is now top-selling OS in American smartphones


http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/12/gartner-and-idc-agree-the-android-invasions-accelerating-aroun/

[asdf]

Ah that's sweet! Tapatalk look a bit different on Droid.


how so?

[ibenick]

how so?

36177

[accadacca]

You need the update dood. It looks like this now. I like it! :cool2:

[ibenick]

Just updated... now that I threw my appstore app into a folder with iOS 4 I never notice my updates, I had 39! The new thread layout is nice alright!

[DiscGo]

We should probably have an Android thread but, this thread seems close enough.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGbYVvU0Z5s&feature=player_embedded

[theking648]

I love this quote "Okay Verizon just updated the non rooted users to FRG01B, so its time to stay one step ahead of the curve"

http://tiny.cc/z0ih4

I'm installing the latest one as I type.

[stefan]

We should probably have an Android thread but, this thread seems close enough.


you could rename it to Droid/Android or something.

[stefan]

graph for the geeks

37426

[asdf]

Finally got around to installing flash and its pretty sweet. I have nly used it for Flickr sideshows but they look awesome.

[Sombeech]

I can put it anywhere on my desktop(s) and it will pull up all the latest posts with a single touch.


How did you do that?

And also, what method are you guys using to grab the screenshots of your phone? (not a camera shot)

[asdf]

Once you install tapatalk pro "Long hold" on your desktop and select the widget menu... you should find it there.


And also, what method are you guys using to grab the screenshots of your phone? (not a camera shot)
cant be done without rooting or installing a dev kit and tethering via PC

steps for the Droid - http://www.knowyourcell.com/motorola/motorola-droid/droid-guides/368799/how_to_take_screenshots_of_the_motorola_droid.html

very lame

[accadacca]

It sounds like Google is working on a version of Android OS for TV. Interesting. :popcorn:

I would take that over the clunky guide I get with Comcast!

[Sombeech]

Once you install tapatalk pro "Long hold" on your desktop and select the widget menu... you should find it there.


Sweet, got it, thanks


Sent from my Samsung Vibrant using Tapatalk

[stefan]

thought folks here would be interested in this article (cover of newsweek)
[QUOTE]Android Invasion
by Daniel Lyons (http://www.newsweek.com/authors/daniel-lyons.html)
Newsweek


How a tiny piece of software created by a few Google engineers is ushering in the mobile revolution and reshaping the fortunes of the world's biggest tech companies.

Nobody ever imagined how quickly the Android mobile-phone platform (http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/techtonic-shifts/2010/05/20/sayonara-iphone-why-i-m-switching-to-android.html) would take off–not even Andy Rubin, the Silicon Valley engineer who created it. Five years ago Rubin was leading a startup that had just been acquired by Google and was trying to develop software that could power a smart phone. Two years ago the first Android phone hit the market and, frankly, it was a bit of a dud. But the software kept getting better, and top handset makers like HTC, Motorola, and Samsung jumped on board, rolling out dozens of Android-based devices.

What began as a trickle now has turned into a tidal wave. In August Google announced it was activating 200,000 Android phones each day. On at least one day since then, that number surged to more than 250,000, Rubin says. Android now has leapt past Apple (http://www.newsweek.com/2009/11/10/back-to-the-future.html) to become the biggest smart-phone platform in the United States, the third-biggest worldwide, and by far the fastest growing.
http://s0.2mdn.net/2045811/PID_1401416_FFI_WIFI_VIDEO_300X250.jpg http://ad.doubleclick.net/activity;src=2045811;met=1;v=1;pid=52951042;aid=22 8873875;ko=0;cid=38343916;rid=38361673;rv=1;&timestamp=35603;eid1=9;ecn1=1;etm1=0; http://www.bogley.com/forum/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=37837 http://www.bogley.com/forum/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=37837
Android is the kind of runaway smash hit that techies spend their careers dreaming about. Rubin, a 47-year-old

[abirken]

Love my droid. I felt like there was a learning curve at first but now that I got it down, it's great! I love the voice text messaging and also the built in GPS. And the best part to me is the Pandora! It also syncs right to my Picasa account and that's another plus.

[accadacca]

Great article! :popcorn:

[stefan]

..


Is Android Open?
Scott Gilbertson
Wired

Google is famous in programming circles for redefining words to suit its ideas.

Take “beta,” for example. Most of us take it to mean buggy, pre-release software that’s “mostly working, but still under test (http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/jargon/html/B/beta.html).” But Google uses the word (http://www.slate.com/id/2215622/) to refer to a product that’s ready for general use but is subject to “regular updates and constant feature refinement.”

Now it’s happening again over the term “open.”

Andy Rubin, Google’s Senior Director of Mobile Platforms who oversees Android, gave a similar semantic shuffling to the word “open” in response to a slam by Steve Jobs. The Apple CEO stirred up a hornet’s nest of angry Android developers (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/10/androids-champions-defend-os-against-steve-jobs/) this week when he suggested, in a lengthy diatribe (http://www.apple.com/investor/) during an Apple press event, that Google’s mobile operating system was not really “open.”

Rubin responded by sending his first ever tweet, posting the code necessary to download the Android source and compile it on your PC and calling it “the definition of open (http://twitter.com/Arubin/status/27808662429).”

But whether Android actually qualifies as “open” in the purest sense is up for debate, since downloading and compiling code alone does not make a piece of software open. Bruce Perens (http://perens.com/), who coined the term “open source” and has been working on its behalf ever since, is suspect of Rubin’s definition.

“The fact that you can check something out and compile it doesn’t mean you have the right to use it,” Perens tells Wired.

In the software world, “open” can be defined around three core traits: a license that insures the code can be modified, reused and distributed; a community development approach; and, most importantly, assurance the user has total freedom over the device and software.

The Android OS is, in strictly legal terms, open source. Android is released under the Apache 2.0 software license (http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html), which allows anyone to use, modify and redistribute the code. But while it might meet the letter of the law, Android falls short on the other two points.

It’s the lack of community-based development that Android’s critics say makes it no more “open” than Apple’s locked-down, decidedly not-open iOS model. As Perens says, “most open source projects instant access to changes as they are made … and an open door for anyone to participate.”

Unlike major open source projects like Firefox or the Linux kernel, you can’t see what’s happening behind the scenes with Android, nor can small developers contribute to the project in any meaningful way. Google typically releases major updates to Android at press conferences, not unlike those Apple uses to show off new iPhone features.

Once the code is released, Android developers can download it and do what they want with it, but they have no way of seeing what’s happening behind the scenes every day. If you want to know how Firefox changed last night — however esoteric those changes may be — you can study the changes (http://nightly.mozilla.org/) on the Mozilla site. The same is true of the Linux kernel, Open Office and nearly every other open source project with a website.

It’s not true of Android. While Android may have the legal licensing to qualify as open source, it utterly fails on the equally important issues of transparency and community.

Android basically gives you two options: Accept what Google gives you, or fork the entire codebase. Other than the ability to roll your own version of Android, it’s really no different than iOS, which works on a similar “take what Apple gives you” model.

Facebook’s Joe Hewitt, the Firefox co-creator who is now rumored to be working on a Facebook-branded mobile OS based on Android, chimed in over Twitter. Hewitt says the lack of transparency in the Android development process makes it “no different than iOS to me,” adding, “open source means sharing control with the community (http://twitter.com/joehewitt/statuses/27878912110), not show and tell.”

The next day, Hewitt followed up (http://joehewitt.com/post/android-and-open-source/) with a blog post clarifying his remarks.

“It kills me to hear the term ‘open’ watered down so much. It bothers me that so many people’s first exposure to the idea of open source is an occasional code drop, and not a vibrant community of collaborators like I discovered ten years ago with Mozilla.”

He also recommends people look at Google’s Chrome OS project, which is being run with a level of transparency and community involvement largely absent from Android, and which is a better representation, he says, of Google’s values.

Unfortunately, even if Google were to develop Android in the open, as the Mozilla foundation does with Firefox, it probably wouldn’t help Android be any more open.

While Google’s approach may be a disingenuous use of the word open — as Hewitt says, Google is doing “bare minimum to meet the definition of open” — there is another problem: the phone carriers.

“The problem is the wireless carriers first and Google second,” says Perens, “because Google enables the carriers to close the Android platform from the user’s perspective.” In other words, while you might be able to copy and paste the code from Rubins’ tweet and take a look at Android yourself, what arrives with actual phone is every bit as tightly controlled as iOS.

Just as there are jailbreaking hacks for the iPhone, there are root hacks for Android that attempt to give the end user some control back. That Android is less controlled by its Google parent in other ways — the Android Market, for instance, is not tightly regulated like Apple’s App Store counterpart — is a secondary benefit. Neither device is open in the sense that the end user can modify it as they see fit — customize it perhaps, but adding a new theme and downloading whatever apps you like are not the goals of open software.

The real goal of open software, as Perens and others have help define it over the years, is to ensure that you can do whatever you want with it. As anyone with an iPhone or and Android phone can tell you, that’s not the current state of affairs on either device. Nearly every smartphone on the market is tightly locked to its carrier’s specifications. There are a few exceptions, like the Nokia N900 (http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/), which runs Maemo Linux.

The carriers argue that open phones would threaten the network. Steve Jobs argues that an open phone would threaten the user experience.

AT&T used to argue both of the same things during most of the 20th century, when it still maintained total control (what Jobs likes to call an “integrated” system) over land lines — you rented phones from AT&T or you didn’t have one. Decades after several massive anti-trust lawsuits and the breakup of Ma Bell, we’ve ended up back in a similar jam.

Even if there were a truly open source OS for your phone, it’s unlikely it would ever truly be open by the time it arrived in your hand.
[I]
Neither Apple nor Google responded to requests for comments.

[stefan]

leaked: sony playstation phone running android

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/26/the-playstation-phone/

[jman]

Hey, for those who have Droid phones and/or the iPhone - be sure to get a app called "heytell" It's a push to talk service that's absolutely free. There is no subscription or ad-supported junk bundled within it.

It works very, very well. Plus, you have the option of saving the talks too. Very cool. My friends and I use it ALL the time now. So if you have limited minutes, and a unlimited data plan - this will complement your plan very well.

Here's a quick review if you are interested: http://iphonesimunlock.info/?p=619 (http://iphonesimunlock.info/?p=619)

[theking648]

big news today android 2.3 sdk was released, i got it downloaded and tried it out for a few minutes, it's not to bad i may just switch from ultimate droid back to the stock version. hopefully someone can get a hold of 2.3 and root it before google releases it to the public in the next few weeks.

http://developer.android.com/assets/images/home/gingerdroid.png

http://developer.android.com/assets/images/home/gingerdroid.png

http://lifehacker.com/5707296/screenshot-tour-of-android-23-gingerbread-and-its-best-new-features

[Sombeech]

I started to watch this video, then quickly got distracted on why I couldn't understand anything David Turner was saying


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx3pdWBlZ34

[Don]

big news today android 2.3 sdk was released, i got it downloaded and tried it out for a few minutes, it's not to bad i may just switch from ultimate droid back to the stock version. hopefully someone can get a hold of 2.3 and root it before google releases it to the public in the next few weeks.

http://developer.android.com/assets/images/home/gingerdroid.png

http://developer.android.com/assets/images/home/gingerdroid.png

http://lifehacker.com/5707296/screenshot-tour-of-android-23-gingerbread-and-its-best-new-features

I meant to get back to this thread a couple weeks ago when I got my new phone. I went shopping to get one for the wife but they had a two for one deal so only 100 bucks later we have matching phones (different cases, backgrounds, layouts and ringtones make it easy to distinguish though.)
I love this phone. I had a windows based touch phone before my blackberry and loved it. It was tough to adjust to the blackberry, which I grew to love as well, but this phone is light years ahead of that older windows phone and much more fun than my bb.
Funny though, a standard in bb is my one android complaint; there's no built in spell check? In bb I could spell check any field I could type in; email, text, facebook, whatever. I miss that. It seems like such an obvious thing. Maybe with the new 2.3 Gingerbread release...

Sent from my Google Android SGH-T959 using Tapatalk

[Don]

Interesting read:

Android Isn’t About Building a Mobile Platform

January 4th, 2011 Google isn’t a web application company—they’re an advertising company. That’s what they do best, and that’s what drives their company. Of Google’s $23.6 billion of revenue in 2009, all but $760 million of it was derived from advertising, and nearly 70 percent of it was from Google’s own websites.
Everything Google does must be understood within this context. Google builds services like Google Maps, Gmail and Docs and gives them away for free not because they have a philosophical belief that web applications should be free, but rather because giving them away for free gives them a competitive advantage. Free services, running Google ads, are obviously advantageous because free means more people will use them than if they charged and thus they can realize greater advertising revenues.
There’s another reason they don’t charge for their services, though. Since Google’s business is advertising, shifting industries away from paying business models is in their interest. If people are willing to pay for email, mapping and documents, Google’s business model is limited. Thus, using the outsized revenues they make from advertising on search, Google gives away Gmail, Maps, Docs, navigation, translation, et cetera, so no one can compete in those areas—to make free the norm for these services. If Google is giving away a quite good service, it’s hard to compete with them in that area, and so the economics of that business shift away from paid services to advertising-supported. And if a business becomes dependent on advertising for revenue, that’s good for Google, because they’re better at it than everyone else.
Google, though, doesn’t just want to run ads. If that’s all they wanted to do, they could strike deals with other companies’ services (email or mapping, for example) and provide advertising for them. That, however, is a risky proposition; a competitor could come along and supplant Google as the leading ad-provider, and they would be finished. So, that’s not Google’s strategy. Instead, Google’s strategy is to weaken other companies’ businesses (say, email) by offering something quite good or good enough for free, take over that market, and then use their new dominant position to rake in advertising revenue.


Android’s Business Strategy

This helps explain Google’s motivation for Android. Google could, of course, just extend their search advertising to mobile phones, Adsense for mobile devices and build mobile versions of their web applications so anyone can use them. That might make for a fine business, but it’d also be a rather weak position to be in compared to where Google is now. Phone makers could change the default search engine on their phones to something other than Google; mobile devices might change how people find information—they might switch away entirely from using a search engine, and in that case, Google would be dead in the water; or, worse, perhaps mobile devices could move people away from using advertising-supported web applications, and toward primarily using paid-for applications; in that case, Google would really be screwed.
So that’s not what Google is doing. Instead, they’ve built an entire mobile device platform and given it away for free. But how are they going to make money from it? All of those things listed above could or are happening—since carriers and phone-makers are free to modify Android, they can (and have) removed Google search entirely from the device; people are increasingly using context-specific applications like Yelp to find information while on mobile devices; and Apple’s App Store, even if it encourages low price-points, has tens of millions of users perfectly willing to purchase applications.
To understand why Google has bet so big on Android, it’s first necessary to understand that mobile devices are the next big growth market. IDC estimates (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/12/22/2011-will-be-the-year-android-explodes/) that smartphone sales in 2010 were 270 million units, up from 173.5 million in 2009, and could reach 500 million units in 2011. This is a market growing dramatically, fueled by widespread adoption in the developed world and growing demand in the developing world, where a smartphone’s lower price-point is within reach of billions going forward.
This is important for Google because while Google isn’t licensing Android (and thus doesn’t directly benefit from increased phone sales), smartphones are effectively replacing computers for many people, and thus are upsetting the computer industry. This not only means that Google must be prepared for it—mobile devices mean that Google must adjust their advertising business from its computer-focus—but that it provides an opportunity for them. This is a juncture in the computer industry’s history, and an opportunity for Google to dominate the next big industry, and thus to realize even greater advertising revenue.
Google is building Android not so they can make great mobile devices and sell them to consumers. Rather, they are making them for these two simple reasons: (1) to disrupt Apple’s growing dominance of mobile devices, both so Google doesn’t have to rely on Apple for access to their users and to eliminate their paid-for application model; and (2) so Google can control the mobile industry and thus secure advertising from it.
This helps explain some puzzling moves by Google. For example, Android’s market may not be terrible in comparison to Apple’s App Store for paid applications just because Google hasn’t yet finished it; rather, discouraging paid applications on the Android platform is in Google’s interest. If users won’t pay for applications, what will developers use to make money from their applications? Advertising. And Google conveniently owns one of the largest mobile advertising providers, Admob.
Moreover, why would Google be so willing to empower network providers by giving them so much control over Android? Because it means wider adoption of Android, and as more Android-based devices flood the market, the hardware manufacturers themselves are increasingly irrelevant. As Android spreads, and the differences between different devices decrease as a result, there will be less competitive differentiation between manufacturers—consumers will, like they do in the PC market, shop based more on price than on who makes the device. At that point, hardware will be commoditized, and building a mobile device business based on a different OS than Android will be incredibly difficult. Profit potential will shift from selling actual devices (where margins will be small) to providing services for those devices—quite convenient for Google, who’s in the business of making web services and providing advertising.
This would squeeze out space for Apple in the mass market, forcing them into the high-end of the market, where people are willing to pay higher prices for a better device and experience. This would still be a good business for Apple, but they wouldn’t significantly influence the mobile market’s direction.
Android isn’t an attempt to build the best mobile platform and sell it on its merits; it’s a play to control the vast majority of the mobile market, secure eyeballs for Google advertising and eliminate any threat to Google.
That’s Google’s business, that’s Google’s strategy. Next week I’ll consider what Apple should do.


http://www.tightwind.net/2011/01/android-isnt-about-building-a-mobile-platform/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tightwind+%28TightWind%29&utm_content=Google+Reader