The first Android is here. It is teh ugly. I think that’s kind of a good thing!
The thing to keep in mind about Android is that it isn’t necessarily an “iPhone-killer.” The cellphone market is big enough that there inevitably needs to be a few different players, but currently the iPhone is without peer. That’s not a sustainable situation. So the Android’s goal should be to offer an iPhone-caliber experience to folks for whom the iPhone is not a viable platform:
- folks who can’t/won’t switch to AT&T
- people with meaty sausage fingers
- people who don’t like Apple’s iTunes store screwing with them
I’m sure there are some other profiles that I’m too lazy to figure out just now.
So anyway: during this period where Android is establishing a foothold in the marketplace, it needs to prove that it can be a “Windows Mobile/Palm/Blackberry-killer” in the same league as the iPhone. Hence the dorky slider keyboard. (I have no explanation for the tracknipple.)
Also there’s the issue of 1.0 launches and overblown expectations. Android 1.0 won’t be perfect. Hell, it’s probably Android 0.91 right now. By trickling devices into the market, they can avoid the bad publicity that nailed the iPhone G3.
A glassy, pure-touchscreen Android is inevitable, and I hope that it’s a reasonable alternative to the iPhone. In the meantime, the real question is: how does the G1 compare to the Treo? So far it looks freakin’ awesome!
