Good article over on phandroid.com (if a little lengthy) pointing out that some analysts don’t seem to be able to separate the Android platform from the hardware on which it happens to be running. It seems inevitable that when the first Android phone is released there will be a flurry of articles pointing out why the iPhone is better and how Android has failed to live up to the hype.
There is no doubt that the iPhone is excellent and has raised the bar sustantially. Apple also has the advantage of owning their hardware and so having complete control over how it behaves. Android will suffer from manufacturers producing hardware that isn’t high quality in the same way Windows will run like (even more of) a dog on a poor spec PC. However, Android offers the opportunity of a wide choice of devices and a wider choice of software to run on it. Longer term manufacturers will also hopefully be able to produce these phones at lower cost due to not having to pay for the OS.
