Two years ago Google started the "Open Handset Alliance" which is a consortium of mobile software and hardware developers that intend to further advance the current open standards for mobile devices. In simple terms, the group is basically a bunch of developers wanting to create a mobile platform that is open for everybody, including non developers such as you and me. This alliance essentially created what everybody now considers to be the iPhone's major competition: Android.

Android itself is actually just an operating system for a computer, similar to Windows or Macintosh. Comparing it to the other mobile OS' out there such as Windows Mobile, the Mac OSX in the iPhone, Symbian and Maemo are pretty valid. But, the difference is that all the mobile OS' are strictly for mobile phones, meanwhile Android can be placed in set-top boxes, netbooks, basically any kind of device that requires an operating system, not just a mobile phone. The mobile phone portion of Android is essentially the main branch, but that doesn't mean its limited to it, the mobile phone branch is basically the base and anyone who wants Android in a different device just needs a programmer skilled in Java and Linux to properly code for that device.

Going to the mobile phone branch of Android, on the surface the mobile phone branch seems bland. Most of the developers, the companies that are part of the OHA, are basically keeping their secrets to themselves, they are after all investing millions of dollars in their Android division, so you can't really blame them. As such, we turn to the underground community of Android developers found in the various Android online forums, Twitter groups, and the like. These guys are the stars of the Android community, some may say these guys are doing illegal stuff, and some would call these guys heroes. But whatever they are, you cannot deny the impact these guys are making in the development of Android.

HTC's Sense

Watch the video on top. That is HTC's Sense, which is according to HTC, a "design experience, an architecture that is all about how people use the device, making their content personal to how they use the device." What they really are saying is that HTC Sense is just a UI(User Interface), even though they pretty much disagree with that statement. EIther way, HTC Sense is the best damn Android experience there is. All the eye candy you see actually has a purpose, they're not just there to please your eyes. And this is what makes HTC Sense the best Android experience. It looks beautiful and at the same time it does everything you could ever want. I daresay this, but if HTC would actually let everybody use Sense in every Android device, then I'm pretty sure Apple's panties would be tied up in a bunch. The iPhone's minimalistic attitude is great, but there's nothing to it really... just a bunch of apps that cannot even multitask to save it's life... HTC Sense on the other hand does all this and more... which is why it's become the most desired experience of Android especially for the underground community.

What these modders achieved is a great thing. I'm running HTC Sense in my T-Mobile G1(HTC Dream). When HTC unveiled Sense(or Rosie, as it was known back then), everybody in the community and the developers themselves thought that there's no chance in hell that HTC Sense would run on the G1, as the G1 lacks the memory that HTC Hero has(512MB compared to G1's measly 192MB). But the modders proved everybody wrong. With a little bit hacking, and modifications here and there, HTC Sense is fully able to run on the T-Mobile G1. This is important as it shows that Android is clearly modifiable, even if its methods fall on a few legal issues.

Vanilla Android

Vanilla Android is essentially the same as HTC's Sense, except all that eye candy is removed. Vanilla Android is still prominent in the Android world as everybody who does not have access to root is using Vanilla Android.

A departure from vanilla Android are the ROM's that essentially is vanilla Android with more optimizations and a few other stuff that vanilla Android does not have. Like for instance, installing applications on the SD card and running it from there, tethering, and multi touch in the browser. These ROM's look exactly the same as vanilla, unless the user decides to use a special theme for it. These ROM's are possibly the most important part of the community. These ROM's are the most stable ROM's you could ever find(more stable than the vanilla ROM's released by Google actually), and they really are safe to use, as such more people tend to stick with these ROM's compared to Sense as Sense requires a few modifications that can break your phone.

I chose to highlight the underground community of Android because they essentially show you what Android can achieve in the hands of people who are not even getting paid to modify Android. As we saw from HTC Sense, if developers would actually put the time and effort in developing Android properly, who knows... we might see the iPhone getting booted off as the king of smartphones(even though it really isn't a smartphone, blackberry is... Android isn't necessarily either).

Whatever the case may be, the advent of Android last year can truly change the smartphone spectrum. As every update was released, Android became better and better than ever. Especially a few weeks ago, when Google released Google Maps Navigation, which is basically FREE GPS functionality for every Android user out there. Yes, you read it... FREE. F-R-E-E. This announcement actually caused a rapid decline in the stocks of the GPS companies such as TomTom and Magellan. I haven't tested it out myself(Sense is only running 1.5, Nav requires 1.6... but developers already have Sense with Android 2.0 running on a G1 so it's only a matter of time until I get it :P), but everybody who's used it agree that it is decent enough to compete against these dedicated GPS devices.

With all this said and done, Android is already the best thing that ever happened to the smartphone world. The iPhone is something that can easily be surpassed once Google aspires to create an iPhone killer(they're not by the way), Symbian is practically dead in the water already, and Maemo doesn't seem to spark a major interest in the whole mobile phone aside from the creators, Nokia itself, and uh Palm's WebOS seems to be also swimming together with Symbian in the water, Blackberry on the other hand... well, the corporates do need their enterprise software after all.

Bottom line, get ready for Android. It's only a matter of time until Android gets in the limelight, and that may be sometime really soon.

Last Updated on Thursday, 03 December 2009 00:48