Is Android Ready for the Real World?

While Wired Magazine perpetuates the myth of the iPhone’s overwhelming superiority, it still has a good point; Google’s Android OS may be too raw for customers to play around with—or even pay for in the first place. That’s the worry surrounding the FCC’s recent approval of the first Android-powered mobile (manufactured by HTC).

Thanks to its status as a Google product, Android is a mobile OS that enjoyed a lot of attention when it was first announced November last year. Especially since Google touted it as an open-source alternative to the closed systems dominating mobile phones, and promised to make the source-code freely available.

Interest seemed to wane as no new significant developments made the press rounds, and as a vocal sub-group of geeks went into orgasm over the iPhone 3G. But the FCC seal of approval has attracted the attention back, most of it not optimistic:

Several industry watchers contacted by Wired.com think it is going to be a challenge.

The worst thing Google can do is to rush a “half-baked product,” says Jack Gold, an analyst with J. Gold Associates.

And even Google has recently admitted that the operating system is not ready for prime time

This is actually not surprising, given the multitude of Google projects that were much-acclaimed, only to meet an eventual demise (anybody remember Google Answers?). You also have other projects that were doomed from day one.

With so much cash to burn, Google is pretty much throwing it all around, exploring new industries and trying to create new ones. It’s a sound strategy that may pay off if and when the company loses their current dominance in online search and search advertising (AKA diversification), but the side-effect is that graveyard of discontinued initiatives.

Then again, an FCC approval isn’t a launch announcement, but only an indication that a product has been approved for release into the consumer electronics market. Google’s engineers have so much time to improve on Android—let’s see what they come up with over the next few weeks, or even months.

It would be regrettable if Android ends up in that pile of ideas that never seemed to take off. Many people are excited to see what Google has to offer the mobile world. Let’s hope for their sake—and the company’s own—that ball isn’t dropped on this one.