By Charlie Sorrel
BARCELONA — This year at the Mobile World Congress is the year of Android. Google’s operating system debuted here two years ago. Last year we expected a slew of handsets, and saw just a trickle. This year, Android is everywhere, on handsets from HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and even Garmin-Asus. If this were the world of computers, Android would be in a similar position to Windows: Pretty much every manufacturer puts it on its machines.
This is great news for us, the consumer. Android is stable, powerful and now it even runs Flash (I got a sneak peek of Flash running on a Motorola handset here at the show. It crashed). It’s even better for the manufacturers, as — unlike Windows Mobile — Android is free. It’s also open, so the phone makers can tweak it and trick it out as much as they like.
And they do like. Most of the Android phones here at Mobile World Congress are running custom versions of Android, which differentiates them and — in theory at least — makes them easier to use, hiding the complexities of a proper multi-tasking OS from the user.
HTC has its Sense UI, which organizes the functions into three areas, the terribly named Make It Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected. In time we’re sure you could get used to it, but in testing the HTC phones are just confusing.
Better is Motorola’s Blur concept, which organizes everything for you. When you first use a Blur phone, you give it all your logins: email, Twitter, Flickr and everything else. It then pulls in all this information and puts it together for you, grouping the contact details, photos and, say, Tweets from one person all in one place.
These updates then sit on the home screen, similar to what Windows Mobile 7 will do, and let you get to what you need fast.
Others just add eye-candy. Sony Ericsson’s Rachel UI does little more than organize lists as floating pieces of translucent paper. It looks good, but its not really usable.
One of the criticisms of Android is that it is already fragmenting into various ghettos, and software made for one handset may or may not work on another. This is true even of the central Android Marketplace. But this is to miss the point of Android. Geeks like you and me will be buying the cutting edge Droids and Nexus Ones and loading them up with applications.
But the general consumer doesn’t care. They just buy the phone and get apps from either the handset maker or their carrier (if they add apps at all). They probably don’t even know they have an “Android phone”.
But the real customer for Android? It’s the handset manufacturers. They have been handed a customizable, powerful and actively developed OS, and they get it free. Better, they can put in on any device they like. And this is what Microsoft is up against with its fussy new Windows Mobile 7, which has the cheek to specify minimum hardware requirements. Forget about the iPhone. Microsoft is in a death-match with Google, and its free OS.
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