Its very difficult for a big corporate like Apple to compete against the agility of a group of OSS coders that are developing Android with Google's backing. Not to mention the fact that Android is not limited by hardware as the iPhone OS is, so consumers have a much wider variety of choice than Apple provides. If a new hardware vendor wanted to use Android but the OS didn't support some feature of it the hardware vendor can put it in themselves or sponsor the developers to add it in as a standard part of the OS in a few weeks (depending on complexity of course).
This is also the reason why Windows Phone 7 OS will struggle, simply because as a vendor you are locked in with no input or ability to add features to the OS. In my opinion, hardware vendors would be incredibly short sighted to use Windows Phone 7 when a far more flexible (and cheaper) alternative exists.
I am convinced that Apple will need to do something really big during WWDC this year to make sure they don’t lose their mobile mojo. Since the iPhone 4 hardware has already leaked, and they have already announced new features for their new mobile operating system, they better have something else up their sleeve for developers attending this year’s event.
Google scored some serious points this year — announcing Flash 10.1 on the new Android 2.2 operating system, and other cool features like the ability to turn your phone into a wireless hotspot. Apple stuck with their guns by saying that Adobe sucks, and that they don’t care people want Flash.
I am a big fan of the user experience of iPhone — but to be honest, Froyo is absolutely amazing, and is the first iteration of Android that has made me get excited about the future of the operating system.
For the last two years, Google has been doing massive giveaways to developers that went to their Google I/O developer conference. This year, they even gave away two phones — the Nexus One or Motorola Droid (depending on the country you live in), and the Sprint EVO 4G. In my mind, a giveaway like this is the only thing WWDC attendees this year might have to look forward to.
With the content of Jobs’ keynote speech under the usual wraps, it’s difficult to know what Steve may be up to when he responded to an email yesterday:
“I hope you have some good WWDC announcements to blow [Google] out of the water”. — Bryan Webster
“You won’t be disappointed”. — Steve Jobs
If Apple doesn’t do something interesting, I fear that Google is going to continue on their growth curve, and dominate the mobile space. That said, I’m excited to see what Steve has to say on June 7th — I’m sure everyone is.
