Android Lands on Sept 23

by Jordan Yerman | September 18, 2008 at 08:53 am

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Next week, T-Mobile will be launching the first mobile phone to run Android. As phones get more feature-rich and more web-enabled, thrid-party development becomes key to an operating system's success.

Currently, the iPhone is king of the app hill, but (sanctioned) apps must make their way through the iTunes app store. Google, Android's developer, is taking a different approach.

The first mobile device powered by Google Inc.'s "Android" mobile phone software is expected to sell for $199 and will showcase the Google brand, people familiar with the matter say, a departure from the standard practice of listing only the manufacturer and wireless carrier on handsets.

The much-touted Google-based OAS will live inside the HTC Dream: the dynamic duo will likely not be available until October 17, ahead of previous forecasts.

This package is seen as the largest single threat to the iPhone, and will have an open-source platform. The SDK (Software Development Kit) is already available in beta form. Android's integrated browser is based on WebKit, which also powers the newly-beta'ed Chrome.

(I'm not affiliated with this project, but am interested to see what the uptake is: switching browsers is much easier than switching phones/carriers)

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