Wed, 06/23/2010 – 14:19 by The morning after
glowing iPhone 4 reviews, Verizon and Google tried to steal back some attention for Android with the
announcement of “Droid X.” There was a splashy press event in New York. I was not there. Here are the major specs on the new Motorola device:
- 4.3 inch screen
- 1GHz processor
- 3G Mobile HotSpot capabilities
- Adobe Flash Player 10.1
This is essentially Motorola’s answer to HTC’s Android EVO.
Android boss Andy Rubin said in press materials that “There are 160,000 new Android-powered devices activated daily and Android Market has grown to over 65,000 applications.” The new phone runs “Froyo,” Android 2.2, which has some impressive capabilities.
According to an associated Google
blog post, “there are 60 compatible Android devices, delivered via a global partnership network of 21 OEMs and 59 carriers in 49 countries.”
Multiplatform app software platform vendor Appcelerator conducted a
survey of 2,733 developers from June 15-17, 2010. It found that developers favor Apple in the near term but are betting on Android in the longer term:
The potential reason behind developers’ more favorable view of Android longer term goes to the platform’s “flexibility” and “adaptability” to other devices (TV, in car, etc.) and the distaste for Apple’s control. The overwhelming majority of respondents (86%) said that Apple had become “too controlling.”
But what’s also striking about these findings (top graphic) is the diminished interest in virtually all other smartphone platforms. Just as Nokia
prepares to abandon Symbian for MeeGo, the Appcelerator survey shows very little interest among US-based developers. Even BlackBerry, which has greater market share than the iPhone and Android, is seeing declinging interest among developers: 75% of developers thought that it would eventually be eclipsed by Android and the iPhone.
