Android’s here, time to Google

The phone may be a threat to Apple’s iPhone and iPod because the device is able to download digital music from Amazon.com. As a result, about 6million tracks will be available on the G1 at the touch of a button.

However, the G1 cannot compete with Apple’s sleek design. At first touch, the G1 looks and feels plastic and clunky by comparison.

The mobile allows easy access to Google’s range of online applications, such as Gmail — its personal e-mail service — and YouTube. The G1 also allows you to see Google maps in street view, allowing you to explore cities virtually, as if standing on the street corner itself.

However, the buzz surrounding the G1 has less to do with its ground-breaking new features and more to do with Google’s innovation, the Android operating system that runs the phone. Google’s aim is to get more people online and using the search and advertising services from which it makes money.

And there are more Android-powered phones to come, with manufacturers LG and Samsung likely to reveal mobiles that run on the software next year.

Google hopes to overtake Apple by making Android “open source”, meaning that people will not be charged to use it on their handset or for writing applications for it.

“It’s a very clever way for Google to level the playing field in handsets,” says Toby Shapshak, the editor of Stuff magazine. Giving one of the most important components — the operating system — away for free, says Shapshak, allows Google to maintain its dominance in online services, as is the case with computer-based access to the Internet.

“PC users often go straight to Google’s pages for search, mail or documents, so Google is ensuring the same happens on cellphones by building access to its services right into Android,” he says.

“Web-based services, or what everyone is calling Web 2.0, is the future of the Internet. Google has cleverly given itself a leg-up in the crucial cellphone market, which the next generation of web-savvy, Internet users is expected to use as their primary means of going online.”

I love google.