Google Says It Will Kick Apple’s Butt

by Eric March on March 20, 2008 at 7:41 pm

Say uncle. Not in so many words, mind you, but that’s the the sentiment Google’s group manager of mobile platforms Rich Miner floated across the conference table when he said, “there’s a much larger potential market on Android than for the iPhone.” No doubt there is, what with muscle like LG, Motorola, HTC and Samsung all showing the forthcoming platform some love. It is going to be big — huge, as a matter of fact, but will it unseat the iPhone from its throne? It will give it a good run for its money, but ultimately I believe Apple will maintain a comfortable lead. Apple have the installed user base, the coming release of Firmware 2.0 that will both solidify existing users’ commitment to the platform and attract many more new users, and while Android does look very slick, fast, feature-packed, and really most excellent, not to mention its open platform culture which I am a huge fan of, the iPhone still maintains a certain level of polish and cohesive sophistication that I don’t think Android can quite measure up to.

I think that perhaps Google is secretly aware of this, too. Miner went on to take a bit of the sting out of his little jab by saying, “[If I were a developer] I’d certainly be looking at the iPhone, and if you believe there will be lots of Android phones out there, as we do, I’d be developing for both platforms.” Did I hear a little “me, too!” in there, Rich?

(Source: iPhone Helper)