Where’s my G-Phone? Google thinks Android is better

So, the announcement came and went with no sign of a GPhone. And in fact, there will be no sign of a GPhone, at least not the kind we were hoping for when we went crazy with Photoshop.

Google’s announcement of Android, an open development platform which has a software development kit following soon, and the Open Handset Alliance is better than any mere piece of hardware (or so the company says). Google’s team haven’t been blind to the rumours and in a piece of the Official Google Blog entitled “Where’s my GPhone?”, Director of Mobile Platforms Andy Rubin addressed them by stressing how much better a universal – and free – platform would be than just another phone.

The Open Handset Alliance is the result of around thirty partnerships with the likes of T-Mobile, Motorola, HTC and many more. We last heard ‘HTC’ and ‘Google’ in the same sentence when the former were rumoured to be the GPhone manufacturer of choice. Instead they’ll be the first company to launch a handset running Android next year, despite generally being in a close and cosy partnership with Microsoft and producing a regular flow of Windows Mobile smartphones.

The philosophy behind Android is that it provides an open platform for mobile application developers. As is the case with OpenSocial, Google’s development API for the web that has recently been accepted as the standard by MySpace, Google’s eyes and ears are firmly on becoming the platform everything runs on. It’s not interested in creating the site to visit or the piece of coveted hardware (iPhone anyone?). Instead as the popularity of certain phones ebbs and flows, Google will always be there under the covers.

In Andy Rubin’s words:

Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications — all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation.

Google hasn’t been more successful than everyone else because it’s flashier or has more bells and whistles. It’s because the search engine has gradually made itself so indispensable that that’s a part of the language. So with every further undertaking of Google’s you can expect the same approach, which is to take over not the world, but the way you think about what you’re doing.

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