Reasons Why Android Phones will win the war

Apple's iPhone is definitely now the winner in the criteria of slickness or coolness.  But one of its biggest downsides is it is tied to single provider (AT&T  in US) which charges too much ($30 for its data plan in addition to existing voice plan).

From developer's perspective (at least me), developing an application on iPhone is not that fun.  First, it uses a proprietary O/S which does much control on the device.  Secondly, Objective C used in the SDK is kind of weird to absorb from a person who's used to C/C++ or Java for beginning.  Also, the SDK only works on OS/X (sorry Linux/windows, you're forgotten!).  Another biggest downside: we cannot test our developed software on a real device, unless we pay $99 to Apple.

Meanwhile, Google Android is opensource and even based on Linux, the king of opensources.  Another thing is, it uses Java language for its application development.  The SDK supports all platforms (well, except OpenSolaris maybe?).  So far, I sense very similarities between both SDKs, though (I think because both of them follow Design Patterns paradigm?).  One biggest winning point: no fees required to test our software on a real device/handset.  This will drive a lot more programmers (especially from third word countries, where $99 is beyound their reach) to develop applications.

Why Apple should be very worried now? First, a bunch of chinese/taiwanese vendors (HTC, Huawei,etc.) are jumping into the bandwagon.  So far, HTC, Huawei, LG, Motorola, Samsung, Acer, Philips, Sony Ericsson, are in or planning to join in.  If Nokia joins the group, that'll be the scariest thing Apple will have its nightmare.