Android Will Show Us Why 2011 Won’t Be Like “1984”

Yesterday, February 2nd, there were two events and some news that came out that illustrated the very different paths that two major Smartphone/Tablet OSes are taking. One has apparently chosen openness and agnosticism in content creation, purchasing and consumption, and the other seems to be getting even more locked down in these respects.

Apple unveiled The Daily, a curated news publication from News Corp. Apple endorsing this “old world” news approach lies in stark contrast to the CNN iReport features demoed by Google in their event, or even the self curated approach that the very popular iPad app, FlipBoard, takes. In addition to that major difference, they also are making waves with eBook publishers because of this announcement, which could substantially change and limit the way subscriptions and buying content for apps works on iOS. Meanwhile, Google’s Honeycomb event highlighted improvements to the marketplace including more flexible currency choices for developers, the addition of in app purchases and much more. This comes just a couple weeks after the announcement that Amazon’s Android marketplace will increase the amount of choice users have in their mobile purchases. As you can see, these two paths are nearly polar opposites of each other.

Don’t get us wrong, we like iOS, the experience is great, the devices are extremely easy to use. It remains to be seen if the consumer market is going to pick user experience and hardware design over cost and choice though. Based on our recent post here, it appears the tide may be shifting.