There are a few Android phones without keyboards already (e.g. the HTC Hero, HTC Magic, and Samsung Galaxy) but I agree none of them has the build quality or polish of the iPhone.
Haven't heard much about them. The only ones that have gotten press are the G1 and Droid, both of which are bricks.
I'll have to check those out. I'm writing some Android software currently, but my phone is an iPhone. I would love to switch (or not switch, if iPhone starts allowing background processes).
I've handled one. Hate it. Maybe it's just the sharp corners and the clunk of a physical keyboard snapping into place, but it feels larger and heavier than an iPhone, and certainly larger and heavier than it has to be. Not sexy at all.
If it looks like a brick, then it's not going to turn any heads and nobody's going to buy it. The iPhone, despite all its limitations, has sold over 20 million units. Geeks get too caught up on functionality, and miss what really matters in the marketplace.
I just want an Android phone to have great commercial success, so I can program really cool apps. But no phone designer really gets what moves the market, except Apple.
If it looks like a brick, then it's not going to turn any heads and nobody's going to buy it.
Blackberries are some of the ugliest phones in existence, but I see a lot more of those than I see iPhones. The HTC Magic / Hero / Dream or the Droid is infinitely more beautiful than any of the Blackberries.
(But, Blackberries are not popular because of looks or function; they are popular because many large corporations mandate them. Just like why Windows XP is so popular.)
I just want an Android phone to have great commercial success, so I can program really cool apps.
Nothing is stopping you from programming really cool apps right now. (If it's a money issue, don't worry -- the iPhone was a commercial success but nobody is making a lot of money from really cool apps.)
>Nothing is stopping you from programming really cool apps right now. (If it's a money issue, don't worry -- the iPhone was a commercial success but nobody is making a lot of money from really cool apps.)
I'm looking to do something with background processes + network effects (needs enough people using it to make it interesting). I've actually wanted to make apps like this for awhile, and then just realized that smart phones were the perfect vehicle to make it happen, provided a whole bunch of people have ones that enable background processes.
The iPhone would be ideal if it weren't sandboxed. So, I'll be making the alpha for the Android and hoping the platform takes off.
I guess I could make it for the Blackberries and etc, but does anybody buy apps for those?
Droid sold a quarter million units in one week. I wouldn't claim that "nobody is going to buy it".
It seems to me that you really don't get Android. You don't need to have one phone to be a great commercial success to develop for it. You need to think on the long-tail. If you have 50 Android phones, each selling "only" about half-million units, you already have more of a potential market than targeting the iPhone.
You still seem to not get it. The Droid is just one phone. It won't take one phone for Android to become dominant. It might and probably will take 3 or 50.
The Apple platform has proven itself useless in mobile computing. The Android has proven itself to fill those gaps.
