I find it most amusing that numerous sites still love to compare the Android Operating System with Apple’s product, the iPhone. Indeed, the iPhone houses the iPhone OS (or the OS X iPhone), which brought about a truly one-of-a-kind smart phone user experience for those fortunate few that were able to afford one (yeah, yeah .. prices have dropped considerably since its’ first launch more than two years ago), but in most cases, these articles often compare the design and look as opposed to the their operating systems.

Thanks to Verizon’s mucho moolah ad campaign for their Motorola DROID, that was made publicly available to anxious android fans (new and old) just last week (Nov. 6, 2009), the DROID has been targeted and labeled as an iPhone Rival. Pppfffftttt!

I recently pointed out why I thought the iPhone and the Motorola DROID or any other mobile operating system or device, for that matter, in my opinion, were not rivals – damn I love using comas and run on sentences . I view the Android Operating System as a platform that provides an empowering force for those that want to explore, learn, imagine and develop on the platform.

Just this week, more popular applications that were developed for the iPhone are being developed on Android. More and more device manufacturers have adopted the Android OS and have merged the platform with what they have envisioned as “the product” of the moment. Even mobile phone manufacturers have decided to use Android for their next device (ugh, I lost that link).

Needless to say, devices that use the Android OS have been emerging like pimples after a chocolate binge (for me anyway). This reminds me of what happened in the early 2000′s with Windows Mobile, (formerly Pocket PC 2000). My first ever “cool mobile everything device” was an iPaq Compaq 3850. I had everything you could ever want in a handheld device. I used the Pocket PC’s PowerPoint and conducted my 5 hr Service Excellence Orientation to New Hires using an LCD projector & the iPaq’s Infrared connection. Other than freezing a few times on me, I was in love with that gadget. The Pocket PC 2000 from Windows pioneered the mobile device experience. It blew my cousin’s Palm Treo away, easily. Soon, other handheld manufacturer’s included the Pocket PC 2000 on their roadmap.

My Everything Handheld Device.

A couple of years later, Apple enters the mobile phone/smart phone arena with a product that made you simply drool. It was sleek, elegant, completely mind blowing PLUS it had their OS in a mobile phone version. Let me repeat that. It had their Mac OS in a mobile phone version. The iPhone, awed the world. Had I still been in nursing, then I would’ve easily gotten an iPhone when it first came out by simply  doing one extra weekend night shift (yeah, we make that much as agency nurses in the U.S.), but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

Apple has been building their awesome brand ever since Apple hired Jeff Goldblum to introduce the Blueberry iMac. Then an onslaught of MP3 devices came out of the Cupertino building, one after the other. Each consecutive iPod had more memory, better features, smaller and thinner design AND was the same price as its predecessor after 3 months of launch (an Apple pricing schedule). Marketing the iPod must’ve been so much fun. I adored their simple yet catchy commercials, so much so that I even created an iPod me.

iPod Me

A few more years later .. Google introduces the Android Operating System (2007) and then decides to make the developer world go nuts by open sourcing the platform in 2008. In droves, developers downloaded the SDK and started playing. In one years time, a few thousand apps, 2 tablets, and a projected 50 phones in 2010 .. Android has become the new buzz and you bet, everyone is jumping in on the “gotta get some android content on my blog site” wagon – even me.

But, Android is not a Brand in the sense that Apple or the iPhone is. A few articles have even questioned the strength of the Android brand by saying that most users do not even realize that their mobile platform is Android. Since there are now so many different devices that run Android, it would be difficult and confusing for mainstream to identify Android as a brand. AND this is exactly what’s key.

Android is a platform. It is a platform that empowers anyone and any company to create and develop uses for the Android Platform in whatever way they can imagine.

The beauty of Android is that is it not limited (per se) to one device, one manufacturer, or as mobile phone services go, one service provider (i.e. iPhone and AT & T). It is not limited to one design teams’ roadmap, one corporations standards or one CEO’s vision. Android is like a seed. Plant it, nurture it, own it and then share it (developer speak) and this in itself makes for a more varied and interesting user experience.

Maybe, society is finally starting to shed its “servant” status to brands (OMG NO! *sarcasm*). Maybe we are evolving into a society were individual creativity is not only fostered and recognized but allowed to thrive and find its own way through the ever entangled economic global structure without rules (OMG NO! *sarcasm again*).

OMG!!! What if Android is a movement that will take us into a Star Trek Like Civilization?! What if?!

So … why not JOIN THE MOVEMENT!