Everyone loves the iPhone--today. It does two things extremely well: calling and email. To date, no other device can top it. But by this time next year, that may not be enough. And Android will be waiting in the wings.
Google and Microsoft are both deeply interested in status updates from Twitter and Facebook, because their users are increasingly reliant on social networking accounts. More and more people are also getting VOIP numbers like 3Jam and Google Voice; even more are excited about getting on the Google Wave bandwagon. Some people have gone ahead and auto-registered themselves for every social network available by using automatic-registration tools. We're drowning in connections and sharing.
That means every person in your address book now conceivably has a half dozen or more profiles, numbers, addresses, and handles. The iPhone can barely handle the onslaught; even if you have MobileMe, as I do, contacts frequently get doubled up in the iPhone, or aren't correctly overwritten (the "my contact" feature seems especially error prone; it keeps trying to update my personal v-card to say "Me Dannen" instead of just "Me.)
To make matters worse, the iPhone OS doesn't auto-update from any of the new services below--I have to manually enter every new Google Wave address, for example, into my contacts.
Android manages all this chaos with aplomb in its "Eclair" 2.0 version, which is replete with smart ways to centrally manage accounts and contacts and make them available to all apps, OS-wide. If the iPhone doesn't hurry up and follow suit, Apple might lose its most Rolodex-reliant customers: business people who are defecting from Blackberry or Windows Mobile.
Android will also have an edge when it comes to searching content made by the people you know. On the iPhone, there's no native Web search that could coalesce contacts' content and Web content; you have to go to Safari to search. Even with aggregator apps, it's still hard to get a handle on the trends or topics in your social graph. Google, by contrast, lets Android search system- and Web-wide, which means it can include its new social search feature.
Android's Eclair version was opened to developers today, and should be available for download soon.
Related Stories: | Topics:Technology, google, adroid, iphone, contacts, sync, facebook, twitter, Electronics, Google Inc., Smartphones, Consumer Electronics, Google Android |
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Recent Comments | 11 Total
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October 28, 2009 at 9:29am by Jensen Gelfond
" It does two things extremely well: calling and email." - actually my iPhone does many things extremely well because of its rich application ecosystem. If Android wants to have any chance whatsoever of eventually catching up to the iPhone, it needs a similarly populated app store. Also, the hardware on virtually all android phones to this point is inferior compared to the iPhone. I tried out the t-mobile mytouch the other day, and it felt like a cheap peace of junk, and the touchscreen was nowhere near as responsive as the iPhone.
October 28, 2009 at 10:12am by Nabil Shahid
i actually completely disagree with your premise that the iPhone is popular because it does calling and email extremely well.
i would actually argue that these are two of the things it does worst.
for calling, the speakerphone isn't loud, incoming calls don't always come through, and if you're involved in a processor-heavy activity, incoming calls can cause the phone to freeze up and the call is then lost.
in email, just the fact that it doesn't have a hardware keyboard means that its already an inferior emailing device.
however, the reason its popular is because it does MANY things reasonably well and in a hassle-free way.
October 28, 2009 at 10:15am by Hatef Yamini
"But by this time next year, that may not be enough" ha ha! Are you joking? Have you seen what Apple can do in one year's time? I'll grant you that Android is in fact shaping up to be a worthy competitor and as hardware manufacturers increase the build quality of their phones, the combo will in truly be a strong alternative to the Apple ecosystem, but by no means is this competition over. Apple has a very strong developer network and the most apps. At this point, Apple has the clear lead and they've shown they can innovate at a rate that keeps competitors on the chase. Remember that there's a lot at stake here for Apple. The iPod platform is waning and the iPhone/iPod Touch represent the growth opportunity. Apple's catching up to RIM too.
October 28, 2009 at 1:06pm by Josh Jeffryes
This time next year?
We'll all be using iPhone OS4 on the next version of the iPhone hardware.
October 28, 2009 at 6:23pm by Varun Arora
Sorry, this felt like a promotional piece for Android. I'm all for tom-tomming advances, but make comparisons objectively or you'll lose your credibility.
"It does two things extremely well: calling and email. To date, no other device can top it." Really? And what about the apps ecosystem? What about usability? What about... I could go on.
Bottomline: this isn't an article worthy of your masthead.
- Varun
Founder, HomeCamera
October 29, 2009 at 1:16pm by Greg Steggerda
Had a Blackberry, hated it. Tested an iPhone, didn't like it much better. Reason: Neither helped me work, although the iPhone was pretty good for play. I'm on my third Windows Mobile device and have had very few of the issues I had with the other two - in fact, I just was out three days with the flu and did about two thirds of my job from home using nothing but my HTC touch-screen smartphone. Websurfing is fast and trouble-free with a choice of browsers, media playback is flawless, I can read/write/edit Word and Excel docs easily, calendar and e-mail syncs well with my office server, GoogleMaps is a little slow but reliable. Only thing I need that it doesn't do well is pdf files. It's not a netbook or laptop by any means, but pretty darn good for a phone. There are dozens of websites with hundreds of applications, if that's what floats your boat. If Android offers a serious business OS/hardware package instead of another Twitter tool with funky options like being able to play the flute, they may get my business. If not, I'll likely stick with what's working, even though Windows Mobile doesn't get much love. I know, Microsoft is evil and all that, but I need some function to go with the cool design and social cachet.
October 29, 2009 at 2:24pm by Tanner Powell
The other day I counted ten... TEN.. dropped calls on my iPhone. I have a 3G and live in Dallas, some 10min from at&t's new headquarters. The phone is not it's strength. Email is pretty solid, though a native Gmail mail app would be really, really nice.
The apps & browsing are where it's at. I use several on a daily basis, and haven't really even jumped in to the office stuff yet (LogMeIn, etc). I read more on my iPhone than I do anywhere else now. Until the UI & app store of Android catches up, I'm not switching, much as I hate at&t.
November 2, 2009 at 11:04pm by Felix Szeto
To be honest, the android seems like it's still very much in a developing stage. Only 4 months ago I was on version 1.5 with the HTC magic and now they have released a 2.0 OS (with 2.1 beta testing already). That usually means it is not the finished article yet and it still needs time to mature up against the iPhone OS. Like many of the user comments below... I found the android OS nowhere as responsive as the iPhone's and actually I can pretty much do all my work on my iPhone albeit you'll need to purchase some pricier apps (ie. QuickOffice). The only problems I have with the iPhone is it's battery life and it's push integration which I find the Blackberry is still best for in terms of stability and being able to stay online with IMs for a whole day without crashing.
At the end of the day, Apple isn't a company that is eager to have the largest slice of the market share but to be a design driven company where innovation and creativity will make a great product. In many ways Google is similar (perhaps with less style). I believe that their OS and android phones will be a strong player in the coming years.
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November 23, 2009 at 4:20am by renwen yan
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