The Android Opportunity

In just the past few weeks Steven Frank, Alex Payne, and Andre Torrez all tried switching from the iPhone to Android. All three are smart, open-minded, and eloquent regarding their reasons for trying Android. All three are developers who care about the quality and design of software and hardware.

All three found Android significantly lacking.

No doubt some iPhone owners look upon this with glee, much like sports fans watching a rival team flail. I look upon it with glum disappointment. I’ve said it before and will say it again, the best thing that could happen for Apple and iPhone owners would be for at least one strong rival to appear. Two would be even better. A monoculture benefits no one in the long run, because it’s competition that drives innovation.

I know there are new Android phones on the horizon. I know there have been some nice Android OS updates. But from my vantage point, the Android state-of-the-art is today further behind the iPhone state-of-the-art than it was when the G1 debuted last October.

Here are a few paragraphs of a piece I wrote 14 months ago regarding why I’m rooting for Android:

Google’s dependence on hardware and carrier partners puts the final product out of their control — and into the control of companies whose histories have shown them to be incompetent at design and hostile to users.

I’d be happy to be proven wrong, but my hunch is that the only way we’ll see an iPhone-caliber Android phone is if Google does what they’ve said they’re not going to do, which is to design and ship their own reference model “gPhone”. That doesn’t mean Android won’t still be successful in some sense if it remains on its current course, but that I don’t expect it to be successful in the “holy shit is this awesome!” sense that the iPhone is.

So far, alas, that seems prescient.

But so if Google isn’t going to stand up and produce the ideal Android phone, someone else needs to.

There’s a theme currently brewing in the tech press that iPhone owners are up in arms regarding Apple’s handling of the App Store. The truth is, it is a summer of discontent for the iPhone, but not for all iPhone users, not most, not even many. Most, in fact, are oblivious to the App Store controversy and complaints. Those who are upset are developers and genuine technology wonks. Those are the people who either want to switch or whose minds have at least been opened to the idea that they might want to switch. But what they want to switch to is not a middle of the road phone. They want a high end phone. [Daring Fireball]

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