Does the title confuse you? No worries, I’ll clear things up.
T-Mobile today announced the G1 Phone which is powered by a Google developed operating system called “Android.” The phone itself will have these features:
Screen
3.17″ 65K color touchscreen that runs in HVGA (480×320) resolution.
Battery Life
5 hours talk time, 130 hours standby.
Camera
3.1MP.
GSM Frequencies Supported:
GSM/GPRS/EDGE/Wi-Fi and UMTS/HSDPA
850/900/1700/1800/1900/2100Mhz
Storage
1GB MicroSD card preinstalled. Supports 8GB MicroSD.
GPS
Built in with Google Maps
Android Market
Similar to the iPhone’s mobile App Store, the Android Market will allow downloading of various Android apps to the phone.
Amazon MP3 Store
Amazon’s MP3 store will on every G1 which will allow the download of 6 million DRM-free tracks with singles starting at 89 cents.
Oh yeah, YouTube is supported too.
Here’s why this is such a big deal:
- The Android OS is a open source OS unlike Apple’s iPhone OS.
- Unlike the Apple iPhone App Store, the Android App Store will have applications that can modify and replace the core functions of the OS (unlike Apple’s iPhone OS where you are forbidden to write applications that do that).
- Google won’t control what apps make it to their app store unlike Apple.
- The OS will be available on a variety of phone hardware through the Open Handset Alliance. The iPhone’s OS will only be on the iPhone and the iPod Touch (or anything else that has an Apple logo on it).
Basically, Google has positioned themselves as the exact opposite of Apple which they hope will attract developers to their platform. That in turn will encourage hardware manufacturers to support their phone and encourage people to buy Android powered phones. That in turn will allow Google to dominate the world. It sounds melodramatic, but that is their plan. On the surface, it sounds like Apple may have something to worry about.
We’ll see if that is the case in the medium to long term.