The birth of the phone as platform

When is a phone, not a phone? When it is an application platform.

With today’s launch of Google Android on the T-Mobile network, it’s clear that Android devices — along with the Apple iPhone — aren’t really phones at all in the regular sense. They are app platforms tied tightly to app stores and content (movie/music) repositories.

And that makes them something new altogether.

Certainly, Android and the iPhone aren’t the first devices to allow downloadable applications. I’ve got a Windows Mobile phone myself and via third-party stores and a variety of developer sites can download additional apps to my heart’s content. Same goes for the BlackBerry.

But those apps are fundamentally different than the ones we’re seeing on new operating systems (OSs) such as Android and the iPhone. And devices running Windows Mobile and BlackBerry OSs are fundamentally phones and messaging devices at their cores.

What makes Android and the iPhone different?

• They are born of and grounded in the Web. The most useful and notable apps on these devices are the ones that take extend existing Web services to the mobile device. The most useful new applications are ones that take the look and feel of Web apps and add mobile-specific features to them — most obviously location awareness. Also important: Beyond native applications, both devices sport Web browsers that for the first time truly render Web sites on the phone as they look on the desktop.
• Their interface is the screen, not T9 or fully qwerty keyboards. Beyond voice usage, most phones are primarily messaging devices: texting, IM and e-mail. The iPhone and Android (at least in its initial HTC Dream implementation) have large, high-res screens that are perfect for working with applications and Web sites. The HTC Dream does have a slide-out keyboard, but the primary interface is the large screen.
• They don’t win feature wars, but it doesn’t matter. Nokia phones have better cameras. Windows Mobile phones have better enterprise support. BlackBerry devices are messaging killers. You can create a very long list of what iPhone and Android devices don’t have, but it doesn’t matter because of what they do have. Which leads us to the biggest difference …
• They are at their essence a platform backed by a supporting ecosystem.These new-style devices at their cores consist of a well-integrated array of software and hardware features exposed via application programming interfaces and developer kits. That enables the creation of first-class applications and makes the platforms — at least in theory — infinitely extensible. Those apps are then distributed through on-device app stores and markets, which makes finding, uploading and installing those applications very easy. Both devices — Apple via iTunes and Android via Amazon — also make it easy to purchase and/or move content onto the phone.

Will app platform devices completely overtake smartphones and feature phones? No. But it’s important for service providers to understand how they are different from existing phones. From AT&T and T-Mobile’s initial positioning of these devices, it’s clear they do.

But that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of risk and uncertainty. App platform phones clearly change the dynamics and balance of power in the mobile equation. How mobile operators ultimately fare remains to be seen.