Andriod is really going to be hard to beat over the long haul. With Apple's closed system, they're not looking to dominate. Blackberry is going to be a niche player with business phones. Android is for the masses.

We'll see if Windows 7 can make inroads.

Android has no licensing costs.

Windows does.

Android wins.

what android phone is the best for tweeking with and adjusting the os on? What droid phone is the most like the iphone is usability?

<--- Loves his AT&T Samsung Captivate.

<--- Previously loved his Blackberry Bold for 2 years.

<--- In fact, he misses the Blackberry email interface. Hands down most usable email client for complex in-boxes.

>>>what android phone is the best for tweeking with and adjusting the os on?

I use the Nexus One, rooted and highly configurable.


>>> What droid phone is the most like the iphone is usability?

The iphone has usability? You mean usability that Steve Jobs decides to let you have? LOL

Can't believe they left out the Palm OS!

Android has no licensing costs.

Windows does.

Android wins.

It is not as simple as that and Android is not exactly free.

Windows Phone 7 is priced at around $15 per unit but it is widely believed to be cheaper than Android that is supposed to be free. Following are some of the reasons from the POV of handset makers as well as apps programmers:

[businessinsider.com...]

Good stuff. Free isn't always the cheapest.

I wasn't sure about this claim, though.

Finally, Windows Phone 7 comes with great user experiences in the Metro UI, Zune, Xbox LIVE, Exchange, and Visual Studio for app development. Creating these experiences for Android is costly. They’re not baked into the stock build of Android.

Read more: [businessinsider.com...]

Are they saying that app UI developed for Windows Phone 7 will automatically look awesome without extra effort?

Or just that there are some good graphical tools for creating the UI? So at least the UI to create the UI looks good.

Good stuff. Free isn't always the cheapest.

Free can be quite costly. The effort that goes into maintaining a FOSS package can be enormous.

But with Android, I think they'll get past that. As the default Android UI more and more incorporates the "best of breed" efforts of the customized UI's the manufacturers put out, there will be less and less need/incentive for the manufacturers to do custom work on their own.

The custom work that they will do will be to meet the specs of the carriers, and that's money in the pockets for both the carriers and the manufacturers. The carriers win because they get to show you the UI that best serves their billing needs. The manufacturers win because they get guaranteed shipment quotas from the Carriers that are asking for the customized interfaces.

The Geeks win too, because Android is so mod-able that we can do whatever we want with it.

Joe Consumer takes one up the keister, as usual. But Joe Consumer will take one up the keister no matter what smartphone he gets.

The overall best business model, in the long haul, is Android. It keeps the carriers and manufacturers happy, so they'll push it hard. It keeps the geeks happy, so that will give it the street cred it needs for the mass market. And Third party developers are already increasingly moving to the platform because of the lack of restrictions.

Google makes a mint because no matter what UI customizations are done by the manufacturer, it still drives people to Google Search and the more people surfing the web, on any platform, the more people spend time looking at, and clicking on, those profitable little ads you see on every web page.