Have you heard of Google and Apple? I think 99.9% of people will say “sure”.

Yes. Google and Apple should be among the world’s most valuable and popular brands now. Today I want to talk about a new celebrity:  Android.  It is supported by Google but is the largest competitor of Apple in the mobile phone (iPhone) and tablet PC (iPad) market. Soon, it will be one of popular names the world.

1. What is Android?

Android is the perfect operating system for mobile devices such as cellular phones, tablet computers and netbooks.  It is based on Linux kernel and GNU software. [1]

According to a report by the analysts at the Nielsen Company (see the following figure), among new subscribers in the past six months of 2010, the number of people picking up Android phones inched past iPhone buyers in the second quarter, garnering a 27% market share to the iPhone’s 23%. [2]

 Look at the green line.  Android OS has been growing quickly since 2009 from the figure. Why?

2. Superiority of Android OS

In Chinese traditional thinking, if you want to succeed, three elements are very important: opportunity (the right time), advantageous terrain (the right place) and popular support (the right people). Android’s success is the same and it is inevitable that Android will surge with good opportunity, have more advantages, and show more popularity in the sales.

2.1 Opportunity

There are 5.0 billion mobile phone users, or 75% of the world’s population. [3] In China, you can notice that everyone has more than just a mobile phone.  Users get the news, communicate with friends, sell and buy goods, pass the time, travel with GPS in the mobile, etc. Mobile phone is becoming an essential thing of life, like food, and people expect that mobile phones have more functions than calling and sending messages. Google mastered the opportunity by releasing the Android on 5 November 2007. Android can connect the network via Wifi and 3G, has cool UI, supports many application software (including Google map) and games in the electronic market (www.android.com/market). User liked Android when G1 (HTC Dream), the first Android mobile phone, was released in the US on 22 October 2008.  More and more mobile phones work with Android now.

2.2 Advantage

 Android is based on the Linux kernel which is stable, secure, supports more functions, and is open source (SDK and kernel).  The latter attracts more developer to make more software and improve the quality. Now Android can be transplanted into many different hardware platforms, such as cars (Roewe 350)[4], TV (Google TV) [5], and even microwaves and washing machines[6].  Since 57% software is free in the market [7] many users are will attracted to use it.

2.3 Popularity

 Android SDK is open source and more developers want to research it and used it. Android gives more freedom to use your imagination-- custom layout and animation can be designed.  This is a big advantage over iPhones to the developer. Now there are 100 000 apps in the market and 1 billion downloaded.[8]

In China, Android OS is popular and used wildly. The Chinese PAD (tablet PC) will soon be released with Android and is much cheaper than the iPad (about RMB 500~1000). More and more mobile phone vendors, Mp3 and Mp4 vendor, and manufacturers support Android. One example is OMS (open mobile system), released by China Mobile, based on Android and provides the perfect solution of 3G.

3. Some Deficiency

 Nothing is perfect and Android has some deficiencies.

3.1 Version problem.

 The current Android version is 2.2 (Froyo).  This evolved from 1.5 (Cupcake), 1.6 (Donut) to 2.1 (Éclair). Hungry? To the developer, it is big problem that the different version is not full backward compatibility.  Sometimes apps of v1.5 cannot be used in the v2.1 because v2.1 has removed some functionality. So developers have to make two versions for the users.

3.2 Hardware problemAlthough Android is open source system, different HW manufacturer can modify it and devel specific drivers for their device. So games built for HTC mobile phone with sensors cannot run on the Motorola Samsung phones even though they have the same versions of Android.  This may also reduce the communication between users.

3.3 Apps market problem
There are many apps in the market and user can download them. But users only pay with credit card, which is problem to some users, like us Chinese.  Meanwhile some the apps cannot be installed to the users’ mobile phone because of the different SDK version and Hardware.

Android is released in the right time and is popular among many groups of user and developers. Although it has some deficiencies, with this rapid pace of development and improvement, I believe that Android will be a giant in the future.

See also:
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)
[2]http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/02/neilsen_smartphone_stats/
[3]http://www.articlesbase.com/nails-articles/the-worlds-50-billion-mobile-phone-users-has-reached-only-3-percent-of-the-population-do-not-have-unlimited-potential-mobile-phone-market-2781330.html
[4]http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gadgetreviews/roewe-350-touted-as-the-worlds-first-android-powered-automobile/13405
[5] http://www.google.com/tv/
[6]http://elitechoice.org/2010/01/08/ces-2010-touch-revolution-unveils-android-washing-machine-and-microwave/   
[7]http://www.intomobile.com/2010/02/24/research-android-market-hosts-highest-proportion-of-free-apps/
[8]http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/15/android-market-now-has-100-000-apps-passes-1-billion-download-m/

Shang Miaohong is a developer at Ethos Technologies.