Android vs. iPhone

I have to totally agree with John Gruber on having low expectations for Android. Web developers commonly know the difficulty for developing for multiple browsers no less multiple mobile devices. Those who design great software have to eventually design the hardware to give the full user experience. It’s why Apple will never release their OS to another company’s hardware again.

The iPhone previewed 6 months prior to its release last year and is still more advanced than what we have seen from an Android phone announced over a year ago and yet to be released.

I’d be happy to be proven wrong, but my hunch is that the only way we’ll see an iPhone-caliber Android phone is if Google does what they’ve said they’re not going to do, which is to design and ship their own reference model “gPhone”. That doesn’t mean Android won’t still be successful in some sense if it remains on its current course, but that I don’t expect it to be successful in the “holy shit is this awesome!” sense that the iPhone is.