The T-Mobile G1, is as may be guessed from the title, the first phone using Google’s much talked about Android OS. The Linux based open source operating system (OS) has been touted as being the next big thing. As proof of that you will find that T-Mobile has about 1.5 million pre-sales of the Google Android based phone and they’ve stopped taking orders for more.
As it is an open source system, you can expect to see a community form for the OS soon and even better expect free applications for the phones that use it. Sort of like Mozilla Firefox and its community which makes available plug-ins, themes, etc and also gives feedback to Mozilla so that they can constantly improve it. Only you could probably expect applications that are a lot more quirkier and fun and also useful for Android based phones.
So far though there is not much to go on and we can not judge how successful the Android OS will be. It is (so far) in direct competition with the likes of Microsoft Windows Mobile and the Apple iPhone and its OS.
So far. according to reviews (we haven’t been able to get our hands on one…yet), we have found that Google Android is apparently a very stable and very solid OS. If an application does crash you can simply force it to quit (sort of like Windows and ‘End Task’) instead of having to restart your phone. That’s a good start but we’ll have to wait for the rest. As for the T-Mobile G1 it is more like a prototype than a finished product, its made by HTC, and its features are fairly standard. It does however sport 3G capabilities, Wi-Fi and GPS. Some of the noted problems seem to be that there is no 3.5mm headphone jack and that the sliding cover that reveals the keyboard could be smoother.