The Google G1

It's been what, almost 2 years since Apple took over the International smart phone market with its (I must admit, original) release, the iPhone... At the time, that was the only phone I could dream of having, and of course 3 months after its official release in the US, i bought it, for a pretty impressive price of $400. Unfortunately, since it was locked in the AT&T network i had to wait another couple of months till i somehow managed to get it unlocked. Ya, having a $400 brick in a box for two months was quite frustrating... But then, 50 Ron later, i had it unlocked and could use it in the Romanian Vodafone network. But still, something was still not right... I had the presumably smartest smart phone on the market but realised that i could never use at its full potential. There was no real software being developed fot it (ya, except Super Mario emulators and crappy PacMan games) and no visible chance of that happening in the future due to Apple's, or should i say Steve Job's obsession to stick to its non - opensource operating system. This practically means that it doesn't allow third-party applications to be developed and thus forcing consumers to use the Apple Store as the only source for applications. And still, although everyone was complaining, everyone was buying it as there was no other phone that could outrun it... Until NOW... Thanks to the launch of The Google G1 Smartphone...

Back in July 2005, when Google seemed to have so much money it didn't know what to do with, it quietly went about buying up a load of start-up companies. One of these was a little-known company called Android Inc, co-founded by Andy Rubin, now director of mobile platforms at Google. Little was known about this company even within its own industry: in fact, all that was available in terms of description was 'it developed software for mobile phones.'
In 2003, before getting involved with Android, Rubin conducted an interview with Business Week:
"Rubin said there was tremendous potential in developing smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner's location and preferences.If people are smart, that information starts getting aggregated into consumer products"

Hot on the heels of the iPhone launch, rumours began to increase of Google bringing out its own handset, to help leverage its burgeoning mobile search functions. Widespread reports of Google hawking its wares round to all the major manufacturers and carriers began to circulate; it was believed the new handset would be designed to work around location-based services and implement a whole host of Google Labs' ideas, as well as the old favourites Maps and Mail. In fact, the fact that Google was spotted more times than a Big Brother reject in the media meant it became a matter of when and not if a gPhone would be announced.

And then the Californians went and sprang a huge surprised on the world: not only had it not been working on a handset, it had been developing the core of a whole new open-source OS to rival the likes of Symbian, Microsoft etc... – THE GOOGLE ANDROID
Many people had trouble understanding the benefits of what Google Android actually was, and what made it special compared to the raft of other rival OS systems out there.
The best way to describe it was making all sections of the system like Lego bricks. Where before developers might have struggled to break down the bits of a mobile phone OS, and even if successful, would find that getting one part of the system to talk to another was very difficult indeed, as they were packaged up in their own little programmes.
But with Android, the rules were changed. Fancy making a GPS application that used SMS location updates? The two sections would fit together nicely. If you wanted to add in some location data from the net too? Just pop on a web piece, too. OK, it may not be that simple, but to the developer community, it represented a big step forward. While the above may have been possible through things like Linux for Mobiles (LiMO), Google Android aims to provide the same thing on a larger, more unified scale, thus bringing a wider audience in the future.

So now the secret was out, the pressure really was on to actually get Android to market in enough time that other companies and organisations wouldn't be able to steal a march. And so, here we are, in December, three months after the official launch of the G1... It is by far the phone with the most potential to rule the market for the next many months... One of the few phones that can challenge the iPhone and most certainly the only one that can defeat it. It seems analysts and industry insiders are predicting an even faster uptake of the Google handsets than the Apple iPhone, which would be something of a coup for an OS. (You can bet a standard T-Mobile / HTC handset wouldn't get this much coverage).
So what's next? Well, that's up to the public. Will it take to the new OS? Will the development community decide to embrace Android over the App Store that's doing so well for Apple? Will the iPhone become "obsolete"? We'll just have to see...

And just to give you an idea of what the G1 can do, watch the following video:



P.S. Its retail price is at around £700, meaning more than $1000, but it is actually being given for free by T-Mobile for any 18-month, £30/month contract you sign with them. And yes, i got it last week! :D