Android Overview

So I thought that I would begin this blog with an analysis of a few key technologies that are currently out.  Without all of the technical detail. I will start with smartphone operating systems. I would like to begin this discussion of smartphones OS with one that is very close to my heart, Android. Android is an open source mobile operating system that was created by Google. When Android was first released all talk was of how well it would do against iOS. It was not seen as a real competitor in the smartphone game. However as of Q4 2010 Android is now the top selling smartphone OS in the world. Of course such information has to be taken with a grain of salt. The Android OS is available on many different phones while iOS is only available on the iPhone.



A brief history of Android. Android was acquired by Google in 2005 and released to the world by Google in 2007. The key feature of Android is its open source approach. Meaning that any developer or manufacturer can take the Android SDK and add anything that want to it. Most manufactures add their custom "skins" to Android before putting them on their phones. This allows for many different flavors of the same Android operating system. Which leads to more choices, and choice is good. This open source approach also leads to many different types of phones that run Android. Ranging from full touchscreen to portrait sliders to full keyboards and anything in between. Again leading to more choices for the consumer. However this also leads to an issue known as "fragmentation" because it is possible for different phones to have different versions of Android which could lead to very slow updates or no updates depending on the age of your phone.

Currently they are working on Android 2.3 codenamed "Gingerbread" which promises to bring better functionality to the Android operating system. They have also begun working on Android 3.0 codenamed "Honeycomb" which is specifically for tablets, and will be introduced with the Motorola Xoom, and promises interesting an turn in Androids future.

From its humble beginnings to the monster it is now Android has come a long way, and apparently is here to stay. The strength of Android also puts pressure on iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7, and Palm to deliver much better products, and in the end the winner is us; the consumer.