A new player will be entering the mobile market space to help other phone manufacturers compete with Apple and BlackBerry. Google‘s mobile platform, called Android, is building upon some of the strength’s of Apple’s iPhone. Some features such as the ‘slide to unlock’ capabilities have been copied and enhanced allowing users to unlock their screen using a preset pattern as opposed to a left-to-right swipe.
More significantly, it appears Google is establishing its’ own Application Store modeled after Apple’s imminent release of their own iPhone App store. The concept is that people can go to a secure, trusted place to download and install software for their phone. Some software will be free while others will cost users to download. The Apple model provides 70% of proceeds to go directly to the developer while 30% covers the hosting, purchasing, marketing and download bandwidth costs that Apple will incur. Google is expected to adopt a similar cost structure.
Google’s Android operating system is based on Linux while Apples Mac OS X that powers the iPhone is developed on a Unix platform. Probably one of the biggest differentiators is that Google will not produce its own handsets but will rely on handset makers such as HTC and Samsung who are projected to develop a mix of devices by the time Android debuts late this year.
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