There is an image that I imagine is in the minds of all the coders behind Google’s smartphone operating system (OS) project: an android reaching upwards with its extendable arm to pluck an apple from a tree. Android is designed specifically to tackle the mobile OS market and to compete feature-wise with Apple’s iPhone.
Sounds good, but what is this Android thingy, exactly? Well, it is essentially a compact version of a regular operating system that allows your smartphone to do all that fancy footwork.
This is exciting because it means that a wealth of software will be easy to produce and become freely available because by law anyone, anywhere, at any time, has access to all the source code and can modify or improve upon the operating system any way they see fit. Couple that with the facts that it’s free, contains programming interfaces to encourage third-party development, and that you can install it on any device as you see fit, and you’ve got a party in your hand.
Apple is more than happy to let you believe the smartphone market is a monoculture. This is not the case: There are seven major competitors on the market currently. Apple lovers may have to learn to take a further back seat, as analysts predict that Android will overtake iPhone’s OS in the coming years.
Currently the market is dominated by Symbian — as of the end of March they possessed 50.3 percent of global smartphone sales according to high tech industry analysis firm Canalys. RIM Blackberry sits at 20.9 percent, iPhone’s operating system sits at 13.7 percent, Windows Mobile is at 9 percent and Android follows with 2.8 percent. All the other individual operating systems bring up the rear with a combined 3.3 percent.
On the one hand, some healthy competition bodes well for any industry — on the other I fear that Google may become our new overlord, as they consistently attempt to dominate every market possible without fear of retribution. (They made their own Web browser, Chrome; they’re making their own desktop OS based off of Chrome and are pushing heavily into the cloud computing market.)
I fear to let them gain too much power as between themselves and Microsoft, Apple could easily become a faint memory. And as we all know, juggernauts only create cold wars when they collide.
The current closed source regime is not doing us any justice and despite my fears (will they be any worse than our current overlords?), Android is nothing if not a positive development in the mobile OS market. It provides a common cause to rally behind and develop. It opens up and frees the market, no longer locking you into using one brand of phone for your OS or being suckered into using one provider (as Apple does with the iPhone by forcing you to use AT&T Corp’s service).
Perhaps, most importantly, it paves the way for a variety of Linux-based mobile OS’s to follow in Android’s already successful footsteps. It will have widely felt ripples throughout the market as OS manufacturers are forced to either adapt or fall behind as relics. The times, they are a-changin’, and in five years, I would not be surprised if the mobile OS market only vaguely resembles the current one.
By opening the floodgates to Linux in such a way that even the non-techies out there will be interested, you’re ushering in a new era of freedom and lack of dominion — that is until you decide to turn evil, Google: While I welcome you, I’ve also got my eye on you. There was a time I welcomed Microsoft with open arms (1994) and shortly thereafter there was a veritable dark age of computing. Don’t take candy from the Borg.
Specifics of the OS, as well as the source code may be found at: www.android.com.
 
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