Android: phones are PCs, only smaller and with more stuff on them

Source: Google/Android web site

Updated 22/10/2008

This What is Android? page gives you a feel for the complexity and power of the Android Open Source phone operating system, and shows clearly how minor the "phone" component of a modern phone will be, from a software and capability point of view. Inevitably, the "human computer interface" and usability side of the design of handheld devices will be centre-stage. And Android is a case in point of something "generative" rather than "tethered". For more on this, see The future of the Internet and how to stop it, and John Naughton's Google's Android could smash iPhone's locked gateway.

Comments

[Dick Moore]

In the last 20 years we have seen the phone move from being associated with a location (a home, business, or phone-box) to where the phone is now more often associated with a person, Android and its like are seeking to do the same for the PC.

The amount of functionality available on these devices is astonishing and its ability to adapt to the largest amount of bandwidth available: physically connected, wi-fi, 3G, EDGE, tells its own story. These devices are intended to consume services on the internet.

The underpinning technology (LINUX), and the open development model will enable a rich set of services to be developed. So is this the last word in phones? The answer is clearly no: along with the iPhone this is the start of a whole new breed of devices that just happen to have a phone built in. For me the small screens and limited keyboards prevent such devices from being a replacement for the PC but that can only be a mater of time.