After talking to a coworker about his T-Mobile G1 and what he likes/dislikes about it it became clear that the OS has incredible promise. After thinking about it for a bit Android needs to be smarter about its power consumption, just like Mobile OS X is. It needs to be smarter about navigation, like the Palm Pre is. It has to be available everywhere however. It has to be trully Open Source. This is where it will succeed. Here are five things I believe Google needs to do if it is going to survive
- Get Mozilla intrested in the platform Have Songbird, Thunderbird and Firefox have plugins that make syncing with Android a breeze. It is the only way to take on the iTunes stronghold.Hulu, Amazon and e-Music should all jump on the opportunity Build services that you can use straight from the device just like the Mobile iTunes store. If not, Open Source developers should build such an application, a media service that does everything. Hmm maybe the Netflix integration and movie/preview intergration that some iPhone apps have now.GRAND CENTRAL I have no idea what Google is doing with Grand Central but they are really missing the biggest of opportunities. VoIP on a phone right out of the box would force competition and really start a new wave of devices and ideas flowing through this saturated, bloated market.Google Push service Just like the Palm Pre joins all the information you need in one simple page from around the web. Google needs to jump on this same idea and do it better. Setup push services for all its services and make it only available to Android devices. Push Calendar, Push Email, Push Contacts, for free. Add online storage/streaming in a Amazon S3 fashion where you pay as you go, or are able to pay up front for a set cap.Software and Hardware are not mutually exclusive The Google Android team should have some visibility into the devices and they should have a design standard. I am not saying to police the OS, that would be impossible. Make a 'Google Certified' badge and every phone that has the Google logo on it should have gone rigurous testing so that it is a polished product. The G1 could have been great but the hardware and the software didn't seem to agree with each other at many points. If HTC wants to launch that, they can, they just don't get to print Google in the back. The Palm Pre, the Apple iPhone and the Blackberry Storm are all systems where one team was in charge of both sides of the device, and it shows. Google needs this, NOW. -=BONUS=-Make the OS available: All Networks, Set-Top Boxes, Phones, Netbooks, Refrigerators, Toasters The more Google pushes the OS outside the 'Open Handset Alliance' the more closer the connected home will become. The closer that becomes the more information Google and its partners can organize, sort and monetize. Forget the whole network lock, don't promise exclusivity to any of the carriers. Sell unlocked phones even if they cost more. The availability of the OS is the most important thing. If my refrigerator knows I'm missing milk and it texts my phone when it knows im close to a supermarket. If my phone can manage my set-top box to record a movie tonight, and edit my Netflix Watch Now queue. If all this works with other OSes like OS X and Windows. Wouldn't that be a killer app?