Apple may have enjoyed steamroller success with the iPhone 4S
and iOS 5 in the past week, but Android's own launch party is right
around the corner.
Apple must be feeling pretty confident with how its iOS ecosystem is charting right now. Despite receiving an initially
cool response for its new
iPhone 4S, pre-orders for the device exceeded a stunning one million handsets within the
first 24 hours, and estimates suggest launch weekend sales may have involved Apple offloading up to an additional three million units.
Add
to this the excitement being generated by the 4S's new Siri voice
assistant feature, plus Apple's long lead on its rivals in the
tablet market, and the company looks virtually unassailable in the mobile space. Almost.
The
biggest competition to the Apple mobile juggernaut comes in the form of
Google's answer to iOS, Android, and specifically "Ice Cream Sandwich",
the next major version of the mobile operating system, which is
scheduled to be unveiled this week in Hong Kong when Samsung launches
its new Galaxy Nexus smartphone (aka Nexus Prime, the first device to
run the new OS getup).
Google and Samsung postponed the launch
previously out of deference to the passing of Steve Jobs, but both will
be eager to get on with the business of unveiling their new flagships,
especially having witnessed Apple's spectacular, unhindered run within
the timeframe.
The most significant feature of the new Android
release is that this will be the first release of the OS designed to run
specifically across both smartphones and tablets. Samsung's original
Galaxy Tab, the first major tablet competitor to the iPad, ran Android
2.2 (Froyo), but since then most high-end Android tablet devices have
featured 3.0+ (Honeycomb), while the current latest smartphone format on
offer is 2.3+ (Gingerbread).
By unifying the forked streams,
Android app developers will more easily be able to target both form
factors, meaning Google may have a better chance of competing against
iOS -- particularly in the tablets arena, where Honeycomb device sales
have
not made huge inroads.
In
addition to this, Google hasn't given away too much about what we can
expect to see in Ice Cream Sandwich, but the inevitable pre-release
snippets and leaks to have surfaced on the net report a slightly tweaked
Honeycomb-informed user interface (including a new launcher and app
folder) plus a new panorama functionality in the built-in camera app.
Updates to the apps for Gmail, Google+ and Google Music (still not yet
available in Australia) are expected, but as to whether any killer new
features are included, we'll just have to wait until Wednesday to see.
Of
course, following Samsung's recent loss to Apple -- whereby the latter
was awarded an interim junction in the Federal Court of Australia
preventing Samsung selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 until a full hearing
(likely to take place next year) -- the fate of all Android devices in
Australia may well be called into question. Expert legal blog FOSS
Patents' Florian Mueller
has suggested the injunction reasoning may contain far-reaching implications for Google's platform beyond Samsung's tablet in question:
"After
today's decision, I believe no company in the industry [will] be able
to launch any new Android-based touchscreen product in Australia anytime
soon without incurring a high risk of another interim injunction. The
two patents on which today's ruling is based aren't Galaxy Tab
10.1-specific at all. They will affect all Android-based smartphones and
tablet computers, across all vendors... Google's cavalier attitude
toward other companies' intellectual property is starting to backfire in
seriously harmful ways."
We won't know more on that matter
until the hearing takes place, but in the meantime, shocking as it might
seem, if Mueller is right there's a very real chance Australians won't
even get to experience what Google introduces in Hong Kong this week...