“Don’t screw with the software. Let Google worry about that. The whole advantage Android offers for handset makers is that they only have to worry about the hardware — but so far they can’t even get that right.”
HTC and Samsung are only two major manufacturers shipping Android devices right now, and their products — four in total, including the first-ever Android device, the G1 — are all minor variations on the same Qualcomm MSM7000-based platform. We don’t know what anyone else is planning to do, but it’s certain that we we’ll see the hardware branch out as the platform matures.
What’s more, all of the Android complaints Gruber’s cited in the past have to do with the OS itself, not the hardware. If the OS were top-notch, people would forgive middling hardware — e.g, the Pre. So it’s imperative that Android manufacturers address Android’s shortcomings, and indeed, the Android device that’s gotten the most attention so far is the HTC Hero, which runs HTC’s extremely slick Sense “user experience” and adds in a multitouch browser with Flash support. HTC is well-known for doing an excellent job skinning Windows Mobile, and it looks like their powerful differentiator in the Android market will be Sense — why would it cede the software to Google? Furthermore, almost every other major hardware company that’s doing Android — LG, Sony Ericsson, Motorola — is going to skin it as well. The idea that anyone’s going to “leave the software to Google” is basically what you’d say if you weren’t paying any fucking attention at all and you had a hard-on for Apple.
Oh, wait.
